Orlando di Lasso

Orlando di Lasso or Roland de Lassus (1532-1594), 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 (which was beginning to take in the expressive chromaticism derived from madrigals) and in the newer secular styles developing in Germany, France, and Italy. Lasso's music was published extensively during his lifetime (a mark of his stature in that first century of printing) and left more than 2,000 compositions.

Lasso was born in Mons (now in Belgium). A professional choirboy as a child, tradition has it that 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, 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. 1563-1570; 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 St Peter, 1594), was a collection of madrigals with religious texts. His masses show how far the integration of musical styles from different genres had come since Dufay first began basing his masses on secular tunes 100 years before. Lasso's masses based on his own chansons follow their models so closely that there is effectively no musical difference between them.