- Flemish composer, one of the greatest
and most versatile composers of the late Renaissance, equally adept
in the polyphonic style that dominated European church music of the
time and in the newer secular styles developing in Germany, France,
and Italy. Lasso published his music extensively during his lifetime
(a mark of his stature in that first century of printing) and left more
than 2000 compositions.
- Lasso was born in Mons (now in Belgium).
A professional choirboy as a child, he was kidnapped three times because
of his beautiful voice. At the age of 12, he entered the musical establishment
of the viceroy of Sicily. He stayed in Italy about ten years, working
in Milan, Naples, and Rome, before returning north to Antwerp in 1554.
From 1556 he was employed in Munich by Albert V (1528-79), duke of Bavaria,
who ennobled him in 1570.
- Lasso's Latin sacred music comprises
masses and motets. His motets, in particular, include many of his finest
works and reveal a wide range of mood and sensitive treatment of text.
Among the best known are the 7 Penitential Psalms (c. 1560; pub. 1584)
and the 12 Prophetiae Sibyllarum (Prophecies of the Sibyl, 1560; pub.
posthumously 1600). His secular music includes chansons (French part-songs),
of which "Susanne un jour" (Susanna One Morn, after the Book
of Daniel) was internationally popular for decades; lieder (German part-songs)
on secular and religious texts; and works in the Italian genre in which
he excelled-the madrigal. His last work, Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears
of Saint Peter, 1594), was a collection of madrigals with religious
texts.
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