L.L. Gilles Binchois - Suele Esgaree

A Landini cadence is audible within the first minute of the piece. Very smooth texture, not too varied rhythmically. Very lyrical lines between the soprano and tenor parts, with basic ostinato accompaniment, figured bass with lute. Phrases articulated with rests in one of the vocal parts, and taken back up by the other voice. Little counterpoint, with lots or part imitation.

The piece is nice to listen to, but doesn't quite grab the attention of the listener. As I said before, the later works of Ockeghem are much more capable of achieving the necessary amount of musical tension.

Gilles Binchois (1400-1460)

L.L. Carlo Gesualdo - Moro, Lasso, al mio duolo

I've always been fascinated by the music of Gesualdo, as I am also fascinated by the works of Schonberg, Stockhausen, and other composers of more recent vintage. However, I find that I run into trouble when I sit down to listen to them in larger quantities than just a few minutes. Gesualdo's music is jarring, deep, painful, strange, and wonderful. It is exactly what makes it wonderful to me that also makes it a challenge. Especially when the listener is aware of the sort of inner mental world that belonged to Gesualdo it is easy to equate it with madness, bitterness, and morbidity. In some ways I see a hateful and spiteful man taking sadistic pleasure in creating some of the most bizarre and dissonant music yet written, but in more ways I see a man reaching out and trying to express his own pain and heartache in what he unfortunately discovered could be his only outlet, that of yet deeper pain. I wonder if Gesualdo's music was meant to reflect his own mindset, whether it helped him deal with his pain, or whether it was simply for his own pleasure. When I ask those kinds of questions, I feel like a Freudian examining another persons dreams. Maybe to look at music as if it were a dream, and to ask just wherefore that dream in that way, is a way to get at deeper psychological roots to music.

L.L. Arcangelo Corelli - Concerto no. 8 in g minor

In the five movements of this piece, the listener is taken through just about every conceivable tempo and mood the early Baroque period has to offer. The movements are:

Vivace-Grave

Allegro

Adagio-Allegro-Adagio

Vivace

Allegro

This piece is more popularly referred to as the Christmas Concerto. I haven't been able to discover any actual programmatic reason for the reference, but personally I can see its sincerity, ecstasy, and profundity as perfect music for the season, especially the second movement.

Corelli was born is 1653 and died in 1713. Overall, he is most famous for extremely lyrical melodies and his more personal treatment of accompaniment figures, which freed up the music from the more strict bounds of counterpoint. Corelli is buried in the Pantheon.

L.L. John Dowland - Flow my Tears

Once again I stumbled upon a recording of one of my favorite musicians of any genre, the countertenor Andreas Scholl. As John Dowland was a famous Lutenist, the accompaniment to the vocal part is a figured bass lute part. This piece seems to be a precursor to monody. The lute tends to imitate and anticipate the vocal part throughout. This song, if I remember correctly is from a set of songs for voice and lute, of which is included the famous, "Come Again, Sweet Love Doth Now Invite."

John Dowland (1563-1626)

L.L. Francesco Landini- Ecco la Primavera

The title of this piece means, "Spring has come apace." In structure, the piece follows the form of the Ballata, in which the form begins, works around with its themes, and then ends with the original material again. The ballata was performed to celebrate the coming of Spring, and as a good will gesture to the coming year. The two voices sing a duet, often crossing over each other in a similar register.

Landini was a Florentine composer born ca.1325-1335 and died in 1397. His father was an accomplished painter in the school of Giotto, which is impressive. Landini was born blind, and therefore took to music as a safe haven, mastering many instruments and developing a few of his own. He is considered one of the great masters of the "Trecento" composers, and his output is comprised of mostly secular music, though he did create some sacred music.

He is also the eponym of the Landini cadence, which inserts the sixth scale degree in between the leading tone and the tonic resolution. Although this cadence is not exclusive to his music, nor did it originate with Landini, he is still accredited with popularizing it.

L.L. Monteverdi- Lamento Della Ninfa-Kirkby

This selection is from Monteverdi's eighth book of Madrigals. It is written for three male voice parts with an ostinato accompaniment. A female soloist emerges after the introduction. It was published in 1638.

This particular volume of Monteverdi's works was arranged very carefully by the composer himself, and are set up in very particular sequences. This suggests that the work should be approached as a whole work, not just as a series of selections.

The music suggests a rather pained sense of majesty, almost desperate during the solo section.

I have always found Monteverdi to possess the heroic side of the Baroque sound, as is appropriate concerning the magnificent and royal "Orfeo."

L.L. Dufay- Mass for St. Anthony of Padua

The first thing I noticed about this piece happened at about 2:40 of the Introitus, and it seemed to be the theme of "O Come, O come Immanuel." Christmas music being on all our minds at the moment, it was especially apt for me to discover this wonderful piece. I wrote earlier about Dufay, but this piece, of which very little has been written as far as I can find, has captivated me to an even greater degree than previous. Upon first hearing, "The Mass for St. Anthony of Padua", seems to demonstrate more of the massive phrase structures of Ockeghem, which seems to explain why Dufay is considered a predecessor to Ockeghem.

St. Anthony is recognized as the patron saint of Marriage in Portugal, but the wider Catholic Church considers him to be the patron saint of Miracles. His canonization was the quickest of any saint in history, as he was made a saint less than a year after his death in 1231 by Pope Gregory IX.