Jacobus Gallus
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Jacobus Gallus Carniolus (Jacob Handl or Jacob Handl-Gallus) (July 3, 1550 – July 18, 1591) was a late Renaissance Czech composer of Slovene origin.
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[edit] Life
Gallus was born as Jakob Petelin in 1550 in Reifnitz, Carniola (now Ribnica), Slovenia. He used the Latin form of his name, to which he often added the adjective Carniolus, thus giving credit to his homeland.
Gallus left Slovenia in his youth, was probably educated in a Cistercian monastery, and travelled across Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia. For some time he lived in Melk Abbey in Lower Austria. He was a member of the Viennese court chapel in 1574, and was choirmaster (Kapellmeister) to the bishop of Olomouc, Moravia between 1579 (or 1580) and 1585. From 1585 to his death he worked in Prague as organist to the church sv. Jana na Zábradlí. Gallus died on July 18, 1591 in Prague.
[edit] Work
His most notable work is the six part Opus musicum, 1577, a collection of 374 motets that would eventually cover the liturgical needs of the entire ecclesiastical year. The motets were printed in Prague printing house Jiří Nigrin. The motet O magnum mysterium comes from the first volume (printed in 1586) which covers the period from the first Sunday of Advent to the Septuagesima. This motet for 8 voices shows evidence of influence by the Venetian polychoral style, with its use of the coro spezzato technique.
His wide-ranging, eclectic style blended archaism and modernity. He rarely used the cantus firmus technique, preferring the then-new Venetian polychoral manner, yet he was equally conversant with earlier imitative techniques. Some of his chromatic transitions foreshadowed the breakup of modality; his five-voice motet Mirabile mysterium contains chromaticism worthy of Carlo Gesualdo. He enjoyed word painting in the style of the madrigal, yet he could write the simple Ecce quomodo moritur justus later used by George Frideric Handel in his funeral anthem The Ways of Zion Do Mourn.
In the mentioned printing house Jiří Nigrin were also published 16 of his 20 extant masses.
His secular output, about 100 short pieces, was published in the collections Harmoniae morales (Prague 1589 and 1590) and Moralia (Nuremberg 1596).
[edit] Trivia
An image of Gallus appears on the 200 Slovenian Tolar bill, along with an image of the Slovene Philharmonic and a short excerpt from one of his mass settings.
[edit] External links
- Free scores by Jacobus Gallus in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
