Item #39294 Motettorum quae partim quinis, partim senis, partim octonis vocibus concinantur, liber tertius. [Cantus, Altus, and Tenor parts'. Giovanni Pierluigi da 1525 or 1526 - 1594 PALESTRINA.
Motettorum quae partim quinis, partim senis, partim octonis vocibus concinantur, liber tertius. [Cantus, Altus, and Tenor parts'

Motettorum quae partim quinis, partim senis, partim octonis vocibus concinantur, liber tertius. [Cantus, Altus, and Tenor parts'

Venezia: Haeredem Hieronymi Scoti [Girolamo Scotto], 1575.

Small quarto. Plain ivory laid wrappers. With large woodcut printer's device to recto of each title and dedication to Prince Alfonso II of Ferrara to verso. Decorative woodcut devices to head of each part and fine decorative and historiated woodcut initials throughout. Loose in a limp vellum folder made from a fragment of contemporary early musical manuscript with neumatic notation on a 4-line staff ruled in red, light tan leather ties, manuscript titling to spine.

Three [of six] parts:
Cantus: 1f. (recto title, verso dedication), title), 3-51, [i] (index) pp.
Altus: 1f. (recto title, verso dedication), 3-51, [i] (index) pp.
Tenor: 1f. (recto title, verso dedication), 3-51, [i] (index) pp.

Music printed in diamond-head notation.

Contains the following 44 motets:
Accepit Jesus calicem
Afflige opprimentes
Angelus domini
Ave Maria
Ave regina coelorum
Biduanis ac triduanis
Cantantibus organis
Caro mea vere est eibus
Congrega domine
Columna es immobilis
Cum mortuus fuerit
Domine deus
Deus qui ecclesiam tuam
Erat Joannes in deserto
Et introeuntes
Fuit homo missus
Gaude praesul optime
Haec dies quam fecit Dominus
Hodie Christus natus est
Inclitae sanctae virginis
Jubilate deo (2)
Judica me Deus
Lauda Syon
Laudate nomen eius
Manifesto vobis
O lux & decus hispaniae
O singulare presidium
O quam metuendus
Omnipotens sempiterne
O sancte praesul
O bone Jesu
Pater noster
Pax vobis nolite
Postquam autem
Quid habes Ester
Rex pacificus
Sanctificauit dominus
Susanna ab improbis senibus
Surge illuminare
Tradent enim vos
Tu domine
Vidi te domine
Veni sancte spiritus

Disbound. Slightly worn; some browning; upper margin of Cantus part quite wormed, often touching staff lines and/or notation but not seriously affecting text.

First Edition of the 3 parts. Quite rare. BUC, p. 759. Lesure, p. 481. RISM P711 and PP711 (one holding only in the U.S., at the University of Rochester, Sibley Library). Most holdings incomplete.

"Back in the confident security offered by the Capella Giulia from 1571 onwards, Palestrina forged a new style based on textural clarity and textural variety. These trends were already apparent in his Liber primus motettorum of 1569 and became more explicitly so in his Motettorum liber secundus of 1572 and the Motettorum liber tertius of 1575. ...

Palestrina was an innovator in writing for two harmonically-independent choirs, a feature of all his polychoral music from the 1575 third book of motets onwards. ...

He ranks with Lassus and Byrd as one of the towering figures in the music of the late 16th century. He was primarily a prolific composer of masses and motets but was also an important madrigalist. Among the native Italian musicians of the 16th century who sought to assimilate the richly developed polyphonic techniques of their French and Flemish predecessors, none mastered these techniques more completely or subordinated them more effectively to the requirements of musical cogency. His success in reconciling the functional and aesthetic aims of Catholic church music in the post-Tridentine period earned him an enduring reputation as the ideal Catholic composer, as well as giving his style (or, more precisely, later generations’ selective view of it) an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement." Lewis Lockwood, Noel O’Regan, and Jessie Ann Owens in Grove Music Online

"[Palestrina's] motets contain superb music and reveal the breadth and variety of his moods and techniques. He composed more than 250 of them, preserved both in manuscript and printed sources. During his lifetime there appeared in print two volumes of four-voiced motets, five volumes for five or more voices (including the 1584 collection devoted entirely to settings from the Song of Songs), and several volumes containing music for particular liturgical functions (Lamentations for Holy Week, hymns, Magnificats, Offertories, and litanies).

Palestrina wrote most of his motets on themes of his own invention, without recourse to borrowed chants or other strict constructive devices, a procedure that left him free to plan each work according to a purely musical design or the dictates of the text or both. The sequence of musical events, the particular techniques he employed, and the formal proportions vary so much from motet to motet that it is impossible to generalize about his procedures beyond pointing out that almost all of his motets are based on imitative techniques modified in ... various ways ..., with ample contrast furnished by more or less chordal passages. In general, each unit of text generates its own thematic material, and the successive points of imitation - with the declamatory passages judiciously placed to set them off - are arranged so that a listener can follow the process of musical thought clearly and easily. But within these limits Palestrina elaborated each motet in a new and different way.

In short, this vast repertory of freely composed motets exhibits an incredible diversity of forms and approaches; individual works repay close study, for each is unique and most in their way are masterpieces." Brown, Howard Mayer: Music in the Renaissance, pp. 294-95.

Item #39294

Price: $9,000.00  other currencies