The Sixteen – The Choral Pilgrimage 2024
Masters of Imitation
The Sixteen’s 2024 Choral Pilgrimage celebrates the art of parody in music. Fundamental to the creative spirit of 16th and early 17th century polyphonic music in Europe, this popular technique involves borrowing material from an existing piece and reworking it to create something new. 16th-century composer Orlande de Lassus was the master of this style of writing, reworking his own pieces to parodies on another great master of almost a century earlier, Josquin des Pres. Taking the concept into the modern day, we have invited the extraordinarily inventive composer, Bob Chilcott, to write a sacred work parodying one of Lassus’ finest secular madrigals.
A spotlight is shone on Italian composer, lutenist and singer of the late Renaissance Maddalena Casulana, the first female composer in the history of western music to have a whole book of her works printed and published. Writing with an intimate and palpable knowledge of the human voice, she aimed ‘to show to the world (to the degree that it is granted to me in this profession of music) the foolish error of men who so greatly believe themselves to be the masters of high intellectual gifts that [these gifts] cannot, it seems to them, be equally common among women’.
Plainsong Lauda Jerusalem Dominum (Psalm 147)
Lassus Osculetur me osculo oris sui
Casulana Morir non puo il mio core
Lassus ‘Credo’ from Missa Osculetur me
Josquin Benedicta es caelorum Regina
Lassus Cantai, or piango
Lassus Lauda Jerusalem Dominum
Interval
Chatelet Benedicta es caelorum Regina (with si placet parts)
Lassus Salve Regina a6
Casulana Vagh’ amorosi augelli
Lassus Magnificat Benedicta es caelorum Regina
Bob Chilcott Lauda Jerusalem Dominum (parody on Cantai, or piango)
The Sixteen
Harry Christophers, conductor