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Cipriano de Rore (occasionally Cypriano) (1515 or 1516 – between 11 and 20 September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...
, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish composers after
Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...
who went to live and work in Italy, but he was one of the most prominent composers of madrigals in the middle of the 16th century. His experimental, chromatic, and highly expressive style had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of that secular music form.Owens, Grove Online


Life


Early years

Little is known of Rore's early life. His probable birth years (1515/1516) are known from his age at death (49, recorded on his tombstone in the cathedral in
Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second m ...
), and his probable birthplace was a small town in Flanders, Ronse (Renaix), right on the boundary between the French- and
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
-speaking areas. Recent research has established that his parents were Celestinus Rore (died before 1564) and Barbara Van Coppenolle, and he had at least two siblings, Franciscus and Celestinus. The family was active in Ronse at least since 1400, and their coat of arms appeared both on his personal seal and his tombstone in Parma Cathedral.Owens, Grove Online Where he got his musical training is unknown. Based on a suggestive phrase in a 1559 madrigal dedicated to Margaret of Parma, the illegitimate daughter of
Holy Roman Emperor The Holy Roman Emperor, originally and officially the Emperor of the Romans ( la, Imperator Romanorum, german: Kaiser der Römer) during the Middle Ages, and also known as the Roman-German Emperor since the early modern period ( la, Imperat ...
Charles V Charles V may refer to: * Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558) * Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain * Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise * Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690) * Infa ...
, which implied a long association with her, he may have accompanied her when she went to Naples in 1533, prior to marrying into the Medici family. Margaret was born in a town within walking distance of Rore's birthplace.Owens, Grove Online Prior to that speculative trip Rore may have had some early music instruction in Antwerp. Many gifted singers from the Netherlands went to Italy as children or adolescents, often when discovered by visiting nobility; both
Orlande de Lassus Orlande de Lassus ( various other names; probably – 14 June 1594) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Pale ...
and Giaches de Wert traveled to southern Italy in similar circumstances. When Margaret married
Alessandro de' Medici Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baricco ...
in 1536, Rore may have gone his own way; however, he is believed to have received some of his music education in Italy during his period of service with Margaret.Owens, Grove Online


Venice and Ferrara

While it has long been claimed that Rore studied in Venice with
Adrian Willaert Adrian Willaert ( – 7 December 1562) was a Flemish composer of High Renaissance music. Mainly active in Italy, he was the founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers ...
, and that he was a singer at
San Marco San Marco is one of the six sestieri of Venice, lying in the heart of the city as the main place of Venice. San Marco also includes the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Although the district includes Saint Mark's Square, that was never admin ...
, no specific documentation of either of these events has been found; some dedicatory material in his Venetian publications mentions him as a "disciple" or "follower", but not specifically as a student. Yet he was closely connected with Willaert and his associates for much of his career, and visited Venice at least once before 1542. Beginning in this year, documentation on Rore's whereabouts becomes more clear. A letter written on 3 November 1542 indicates he was at Brescia, where he was known to have remained until 16 April 1545. It was during this period that he began to acquire fame as a composer, publishing, with the assistance of the Venetian printer Scotto, his first book of madrigals in 1542, as well as two books of motets in 1544 and 1545. The reprints of these works two years later by both Scotto and Gardane indicated their high regard. Their technical mastery, and stylistic indebtedness to Willaert and his circle, make an early connection with Venice a reasonable supposition.Johnson, p 186 Rore then went to Ferrara, where payment records show he was ''maestro di cappella'' (choirmaster) beginning on 6 May 1546. This was the beginning of an extraordinarily productive portion of his life; while in the service of Duke Ercole II d'Este he wrote masses, motets, chansons, and of course madrigals, many of which were topical, some involving matters concerning the court itself. In 1556 Duke Ercole awarded Rore a benefice for his exceptional service. Also during the Ferrara years, Rore began cultivating his relations with the court of Albrecht V of Bavaria in Munich, sending them music, and having 26 motets produced in an elaborately illustrated manuscript with miniatures by Hans Müelich. In 1558 he requested a leave of absence from his employer in Ferrara in order to return to his homeland to care for his ailing parents. He stopped in Munich on the way, reaching the city on 1 May, where he assisted in preparation of the motet manuscript, and posed for the Müelich portrait. A document of September 1558 places him in Flanders, where he was helping his sister-in-law with estate matters on the death of Celistinus, his brother. By December he had returned to Ferrara.


Departure from Ferrara; last years

In July 1559 Rore left his post in Ferrara again, possibly because the new Duke
Alfonso II d'Este Alfonso II d'Este (24 November 1533 – 27 October 1597) was Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597. He was a member of the House of Este. Biography He was the elder son of Ercole II d'Este and Renée de France, the daughter of Louis XII of Fran ...
preferred
Francesco dalla Viola Francesco dalla Viola (died 1568) was a 16th-century choirmaster and composer. Biography Francesco was a singer under the direction of Adrian Willaert between the years 1522 and 1526. Francesco was the choirmaster at Modena from about 1530. Ar ...
, a member of an old Ferrara family, to the foreigner. Once again he went north to his homeland; this time he was not to return to Este service. The situation in his homeland had deteriorated due to the ravages of the
Wars of Independence This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against for ...
, and when Rore reached it in autumn 1559, he found that his home town, Ronse, had been destroyed. Unable to regain his employment in Ferrara, he re-entered the service of the House of Farnese, and after a stay in Antwerp, returned to Italy again, this time to Parma, in 1560. Unhappy there – Parma was not an intellectual and cultural center on the level of Ferrara or Venice – he left in 1563, briefly taking the prestigious position of ''maestro di cappella'' at St. Mark's on the death of his mentor Adrian Willaert. However he only kept this post into 1564, at which time he returned to Parma; he gave as his reason for departing Venice the disorder in the chapel and an insufficient salary. He died at Parma the next year of unknown causes at age 49 and was buried in the cathedral in that city. Lodovico Rore, his nephew, erected his tombstone, indicating in the epitaph that his name would not be forgotten, even in the distant future.


Music and influence

Rore was one of the most influential composers in the middle of the sixteenth century, mainly through the dissemination of his madrigals. His 1542 book was an extraordinary event, and recognized as such at the time: it established five voices as the norm, rather than four, and it married the
polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...
texture of the Netherlandish
motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Ma ...
with the Italian secular form, bringing a seriousness of tone which was to become one of the predominant trends in madrigal composition all the way into the seventeenth century.Johnson, p. 186-7 All of the lines of development in the madrigal in the late century can be traced to ideas first seen in Rore; according to Alfred Einstein, his only true spiritual successor was
Claudio Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is consider ...
, another revolutionary. In his sacred music, however, Rore was more backward-looking, showing his connection to his Netherlandish roots: his masses, for example, are reminiscent of the work of
Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...
. Rore wrote 107 madrigals that are securely attributed to him; 16 secular Latin compositions, similar in form to madrigals; at least seven
chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...
s; 53
motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Ma ...
s, of which 51 survive; a Passion according to Saint John; five settings of the
mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different ele ...
; some
Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for " y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical servic ...
s; and a handful of other works.


Sacred music

While Rore is best known for his Italian madrigals, he was also a prolific composer of sacred music, both masses and motets. Josquin was his point of departure, and he developed many of his techniques from the older composer's style. Rore's first three masses are a response to the challenge of his heritage and to the music of his predecessor, Josquin. In addition to five masses, he wrote about 80 motets, many psalms, secular motets, and a setting of the St. John Passion.


Secular music

It was as a composer of madrigals, however, that Rore achieved enduring fame. With his madrigals published primarily between 1542 and 1565, he was one of the most influential madrigalists at mid-century. His early madrigals reflect the styles of Willaert with the use of clear diction, thick and continuous counterpoint, and pervasive imitation. These works are mostly for four or five voices, with one for six and another for eight.Johnson 187 The tone of his writing tends toward the serious, especially as contrasted with the light character of the work of his predecessors, such as Arcadelt and Verdelot.Reese, p 330 Rore chose not to write madrigals of frivolous nature, preferring to focus on serious subject matter, including the works of Petrarch, and tragedies presented at Ferrara. Rore carefully brought out the varying moods of the texts he set, developing musical devices for this purpose; additionally he often ignored the structure of the line, line division, and rhyme, deeming it unnecessary that the musical and poetic lines correspond. In addition, Rore experimented with chromaticism, following some of the ideas of his contemporary
Nicola Vicentino Nicola Vicentino (1511 – 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most progressive musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard. Life Little is known of h ...
.Reese, p 329 He used all the resources of polyphony as they had developed by the middle 16th century in his work, including imitation and canonic techniques, all in the service of careful text setting. He proved to be the model whom many of the great madrigalists of the late sixteenth century followed, including Claudio Monteverdi. According to Alfred Einstein, writing in ''The Italian Madrigal'' (1949), Rore's true spiritual successor was Monteverdi. Einstein also said, "Rore holds the key to the whole development of the Italian madrigal after 1550." Rore also composed secular Latin motets, a relatively unusual "cross-over" form in the mid-16th century. These motets, being a secular variation of a normally sacred form, paralleled the sacred madrigal, the ''
madrigale spirituale A madrigale spirituale (Italian; pl. ''madrigali spirituali'') is a madrigal, or madrigal-like piece of music, with a sacred rather than a secular text. Most examples of the form date from the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, and principall ...
'', which was a sacred variation on a popular secular form.Atlas, p 598 Stylistically these motets are similar to his madrigals, and he published them throughout his career; occasionally they appeared in collections of madrigals, such as in his posthumous Fifth Book for five voices (1566), and he also included some in a collection of motets for five voices published in 1545.Johnson, p. 187, 189


Works


Secular

* ''I madrigali'' (Venice, 1542, five voices) * ''Il primo libro de madregali cromatici'' (Venice, 1544, five voices; enlargement of 1542 publication) * ''Il secondo libro de madregali'' (Venice, 1544, five voices) * ''Il terzo libro di madrigali'', (Venice, 1548, five voices) * ''Musica ... sopra le stanze del Petrarcha ... libro terzo'' (Venice, 1548, five voices) * ''Il primo libro de madrigali'' (Ferrara, 1550, five voices) (also contains chansons in French) * ''Il quarto libro d'imadregali'' (Venice, five voices) * ''Il secondo libro de madregali'', (Venice, 1557, four voices) * ''Li madrigali libro quarto'', (Venice, 1562, five voices) * ''Le vive fiamme de' vaghi e dilettevoli madrigali'', (Venice, 1565, four and five voices) (also contains secular Latin pieces) * ''Il quinto libro de madrigali'' (1566, five voices) (also contains secular Latin pieces) * Numerous additional works in anthologies, between 1547 and 1570


Sacred

* ''Motectorum liber primus'' (Venice, 1544, five voices) * ''Motetta'' (Venice, 1545, five voices) * ''Il terzo libro di motetti'' (Venice, 1549, five voices) * ''Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem'' (Paris, 1557; two to six voices) * ''Motetta'' (Venice, 1563, four voices) * ''Sacrae cantiones'' (Venice, 1595; five to seven voices)


Notes


References and further reading

* Atlas, Allan W. ''Renaissance Music''. New York, Norton, 1998. * Brown, Howard M. and Louise K. Stein. ''Music in the Renaissance, Second Ed.'' New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999. * Einstein, Alfred. ''The Italian Madrigal.'' Three volumes. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1949. * Johnson, Alvin H. "Cipriano de Rore," in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. * Owens, Jessie Ann: "Rore, Cipriano de", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed November 18, 2007)
(subscription access)
* Reese, Gustave. ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.


External links

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Free scores by Cipriano de Rore
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VistaMare Musica
early music site {{DEFAULTSORT:Rore, Cypriano de 1510s births 1565 deaths 16th-century Franco-Flemish composers Flemish composers Italian male classical composers Italian classical composers Madrigal composers People from Ronse Renaissance composers Venetian School (music) composers