The iUniversity
Section Three
Music Treasures from the 17th Century – The Lost Century
Italy is where the birth of today’s classical music took place. The instruments of the violin family, the brass, the beginnings of what became Western tonal harmony, the terms (concerto, symphony, adagio, piano, forte, allegro, and so on) all this came from Italy. The birth date was 1600.
The seventeenth century has been a lost century, many of its greatest composers unknown even to students of early music. I discovered it during the 1970s when I was studying the music of the 16th century. In fact, I discovered only one score, a psalm by the great Bolognese composer Colonna. Playing through this music on the piano, I realized its great beauty and I began to search for recordings and more scores, only to have to wait until the 1990s, when a single label in Italy (Tactus) and a single publishing company (Garland) made available the works from the great 17th-century Italian music center for the first time. The DoveSong iUniversity intends to help make great 17th century music from Germany, Italy and France available in several published study scores.
The 1600s were ushered in by a group of highly educated noblemen who lived in Florence, Italy who called themselves the Florentine Camarata. In their regularly held meetings they discussed ways whereby they might revive Greek tragedy, and they came up with a new style of music based on the extensive research into ancient Greek dramatic music that had been conducted by Girolamo Mei, an erudite Florentine scholar who lived and worked in Rome. Based on the ideas of the Camarata, Emilio De’Cavalieri wrote the first important dramatic and liturgical works and he and Jacopo Peri wrote the first operas, which were performed in 1600, the first year of the new century.
From these humble beginnings, an all-new style of music was born, a style that moved away from the dominant polychordal choral singing of the previous century to instrumental music, solo singing, and a mixture of all three.
Claudio Monteverdi, who inherited the great tradition of Venice, was the first great composer of the era and the first great opera was his beautiful Orfeo, composed in 1607. By mid-century, the Italian town of Bologna had become a tremendous center of music, and there the full flowering of the 17th Century took place, not only in sacred music, but in instrumental music as well.
Scores
Instrumental Music
MI-001 – Instrumental Music in the 17th Century Volume 1 (230 Pages)
Viadana, Cazzati
MI-002 – Instrumental Music in the 17th Century Volume 2 (185 Pages)
Stradella, Vitali, Gabrieli, Cazzati, Pachelbel
Sacred Music from Italy
MB-001 – Emilio de’ Cavalieri – Lamentations (125 pages)
MB-002 – Sacred Music of Lodovico da Viadana (210 pages)
MB-003 – Lodovico da Viadana – Vespers for Four Choirs (180 Pages)
MB-004 – Claudio Monteverdi Vocal and Choral Music (300 pages)
MB-005 – Claudio Monteverdi – Vespers of 1610
MB-006 – Sacred Music from 17th Century Italy Volume 1 (250 pages)
Stradella, Turini, Fattorini, Rigatti,
Conforti, Anerio, Benevoli,
Tardidi, Agostini, Bernardi
MB-007 – Sacred Music from 17th Century Italy Volume 2 (230 pages)
Vitali, Pitoni, Donati
MB-008 – Sacred Music from 17th Century Italy Volume 3 (250 pages)
Grandi, Carissimi, Allegri,
Gabrieli, Rovetta
MB-009 – Maurizio Cazzati – Sacred Music (210 pages)
MB-010 – Maurizio Cazzati – Masses a4 and a5 (160 pages)
MB-011 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna – Sacred Choral Music (334 pages)
MB-012 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna – Vespers Op. 112 Volume 1 (257 pages)
MB-013 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna – Vespers Op. 112 Volume 2 (228 pages)
MB-014 – Sacred Choral Music of Francesco Cavalli (285 pages)
MB-015 – Giovanni Paolo Colonna – Two Masses (225 pages)
Sacred Music from Germany
MB-016 – German Sacred Choral Music Volume 2 (234 pages)
Krieger, Theile, Förster, Weckmann
MB-017 – German Sacred Choral Music Volume 2 (230 pages)
Geist, Bernhard, Förtsch, Schelle, Bruhns,
Strungk, Pfleger
MB-018 – German Sacred Choral Music Volume 3 (160 pages)
Schütz, Scheidt
MB-019 – Dieterich Buxtehude – Sacred Choral Music (300 pages)
Sacred Music from France
MB-020 – Sacred Music from 17th Century France Volume 1 (200 pages)
Desmarets, Gilles, de Brossard
MB-021 – Sacred Music from 17th Century France Volume 2 (206 pages)
MB-022 – Sacred Music of Michel-Richard Delalande (242 pages)
MB-023 – Sacred Music of Marc-Antoine Chapentier Volume 1 (305 pages)
MB-024 – Sacred Music of Marc-Antoine Chapentier Volume 2 (310 pages)
MB-025 – Holy Week Music of Marc-Antoine Chapentier (315 pages)
Multiple Choirs and Marian Antiphons
MB-026 – Italian Sacred Music for Two Choirs (280 pages)
Bertali, Carissimi, Cavalli, Grandi, Monteverdi
MB-027 – The Four Marian Antiphons (240 pages)
Charpentier, Rigatti, Stradella, Cavalli,
Charpentier, Grandi, Rovetta, Anerio, Turini,
Viadana
MB-028 – Sacred Music for Multiple Choirs (170 pages)
Gabrieli, Benevoli
Book Reprints
BV-001 – A Companion to the Thorough-Bass Primer (Burrowes, John Freckleton)
BV-002 – Beispiele zum Generalbass (Vanhal, Johann Baptist)
BV-003 – Practical Thorough Bass (Crotch, William)
BV-004 – Giovanni Maria Bononcini of Modena, by William Klenz (1962)
BV-005 – Exercises in Figured Bass and Melody Harmonisation, by James Lyon – Volumes 1 and 2
Videos
Visit “The 17th Century – The Forgotten Century” – – >
Visit “Great 17th Century Sacred Music” – Musical Kaleidoscope on YouTube – – >