Lasso Orlando, French-Flemish composer: biography, creativity

Orlando Lasso is a famous Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. His artistic and musical heritage is so great that it has not been investigated to the end. The influence it has had on the culture and art of all mankind is simply invaluable.

So, meet - Orlando Lasso (Orlando Lasso).

Childhood

The future talented composer was born in 1532 in the Walloon town of Mons (Belgium), where French was the primary language of the population.

Having a beautiful, well-placed voice, Orlando from childhood begins to sing in the church choir, delighting the hearing of people of all ages and estates. There, in the cathedral of St. Nicholas, a small Orlando Di Lasso gets acquainted with liturgical teachings, penetrates the religious spirit and gets some idea of the musical art of that time. Such knowledge will subsequently have a huge impact on the life and work of a gifted child.

Thanks to his unusual colorful voice, Orlando Lasso received a unique fateful opportunity to escape from a small town and realize his creative abilities.

This happened when the boy was twelve years old. To his sonorous beautiful chant, Ferrante I Gonzaga, Count and Sicilian Viceroy, the celebrated commander of the Holy Roman Empire, drew attention. He offered the talented chorus the place of a chorister in his chapel.

Lasso Orlando took advantage of the gift of fate. Together with his master he travels through Italy, visits beautiful picturesque cities and engages in self-education. It was during this period that Lasso Orlando began to compose music in the style of Italian folklore and gained popularity among his contemporaries.

Youth

At the age of seventeen, Orlando Lasso, whose biography and writing are the subject of this article, turns to the service of the famous Neapolitan philanthropist, Marquês della Tertz, and continues to create a talented and fruitful career.

Lasso was not even twenty years old when he received the responsible and influential position of the conductor of the cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The fact that such an important leadership has been entrusted to such a young man speaks volumes: the Lasso composer was appreciated by his contemporaries.

The duties of the conductor included not only conducting the orchestra and the choir, but also writing music, timed to special solemn occasions.

In three years, the talented Orlando leaves its high-ranking place and leaves for home. According to some reports, this is due to a mother's illness.

First printed works

After the death of his parents, Lasso Orlando moves to Flemish Antwerp, where his talented works are published in one collection. In this young composer is rendered invaluable help and support by Tilman Suzato - a well-known composer and influential non-publisher.

The huge collection includes small love-lyric works in Italian style (madrigals), as well as stanza vocal works (French chansons) and works of multi-voiced textures (Latin motets).

Promotion

At the age of twenty-four, Lasso Orlando, whose music gained wide popularity outside his homeland, received a fateful invitation to the court of the Bavarian duke Albrecht V. Albrecht of Bavaria was famous for his kind disposition and patronizing attitude towards artists.

At first the composer served as a chorister in the choir. He possessed a high tenor, took the so-called royal notes. But seven years later the talented singer was entrusted with the place of the court conductor.

He very zealously and zealously got down to business. Created the necessary team of people who have not only a beautiful voice, but also a musical ear. Carefully engaged in teaching every singer or musician.

Very soon the ducal choral orchestra became a highly professional musical ensemble, the glory of which went around the world, and Munich - the city in which it was - became one of the most important musical centers in Europe.

Orlando Lasso, whose works were regularly performed in the Bavarian chapel, gradually becoming popular in other parts of the world, began to engage in teaching activities. Thus, he strengthened his talent and influence among art connoisseurs, and also increased his capital.

Attitude to the composer

In those days, great and talented musicians often became servants of the people in whose houses they served. But Lasso Orlando managed to avoid such an unenviable fate.

Endowed with a lively mind and a wonderful sense of humor, the well-known composer was able to win respectful, even respectful relations from the rich and the nobles. Lasso was a good conversationalist: he could listen attentively and insert an eloquent or witty word in time. Possessing knowledge in various forms of art, Orlando was considered a great connoisseur and an authoritative connoisseur. He could touch the heart with sincere speeches or merry jokes, beside him the rest felt easy and at ease. Therefore it is not surprising that two years after the arrival to the ducal court, the charming composer married the daughter of an influential lady and led an open secular life, inviting Albrecht V. himself to personal receptions

Last years

Performing his duties as a bandmaster, Lasso Orlando traveled extensively throughout Italy, France and England. He shared his creativity with other talented musicians, was recruited on trips of new emotions and impressions, drew inspiration from them.

Once he was offered an honorable place in Dresden under the King of Saxony, but he refused this, as well as many other tempting invitations, because he did not want to destroy a well-established everyday life and leave the courtyard where he found peace and prosperity.

They say that at the end of his life Lasso was benefited very generously and even abundantly. The acting duke (and this was Albrecht's son - Wilhelm the Pious) freed him from the duties of the conductor for health reasons, allocated a considerable pension benefit and presented a beautiful villa.

Formation of musical art

The composer's work was greatly influenced by his foreign trips to Europe. Going into the culture of different countries, he deeply reflected on its national peculiarities and adopted in his works what he considered to be the brightest and most successful achievement of that time.

The humanistic worldview of Lasso, which he reflected in many of his writings, was influenced by his communication with such French Pleiadist poets as Ronsard and de Baif.

Religious creativity

Most of Lasso's vocal works are church music, which contains the composer's own poems or altered rhymes, borrowed quotations.

Here we should mention more than sixty masses of the author, his requiem (funeral or funeral large oratorio) and four cycles of passions (vocal dramatic compositions dedicated to the sufferings of Christ). The euphonic and vital church music of Orlando is also the works listed below:

1. Offices of Holy Week - a special service, painted by the clock.
2. More than one hundred of the Magnificats, based on the prayer (or praise) of Mary - the mother of Christ, taken from the Gospel of Luke, the first chapter.
3. More than a hundred hymns - songs that glorify biblical characters.
4. Many other spiritual works (in the style of chanson or madrigal). It is also necessary to note the talentedly executed chanson about the Jewess Susanna and the two vicious old men. A popular story for the work is taken from non-canonical, or apocryphal, sources.
5. Church chants based on places from the Holy Scriptures.
6. Hundreds of spiritual madrigals and motets, among which the cycle of seven-voiced small compositions "The Tears of St. Peter" and the collection "The Penitential Psalms of David" are most famous and significant.

Secular creativity

But Orlando Lasso did not limit his talent to only religious writings. The music of the Renaissance would not be so beautiful, refreshed and majestic, if not for its exceptional, relevant and intense works. Among them, it is necessary to pay attention to the following:

1. More than one hundred and fifty villanellas. Villanella is a country song in a Neapolitan manner, distinguished by lyric poetry with notes of comedy and many-voiced music.
2. About two hundred seas. Moresca is a song and dance composition, whimsically depicting the Moors.
3. A lot of canzon. The canzone is a lyric song of troubadours.
4. More than one hundred and forty German vintage songs.
5. About two hundred and fifty secular madrigals, chansons and faburdons.
6. Almost five hundred motets. Motet - a vocal multi-voice work using a polyphonic warehouse. Such works of Lasso were intended for secular use, in didactic or ceremonial purposes.

Humorous works

Lasso also wrote comic songs. For example, his drinking compositions ("Now you can rejoice" or "God, you made wine") are filled with bright humorous paints and are easy to perceive. They set the listeners in a positive way, relax and entertain, which is so necessary during feasts and festivities.

Mocking sounds are heard in the famous love serenade, composed by Orlando, where a subtle humorous touch is how a German soldier distorts Italian words.

Also the great composer created a number of frivolous works, where he described in frivolous playful form frivolous, windy or frivolous moments taken from everyday life.

Here it is necessary to mention his carefree, foolish chanson about a secular lady viewing the nature of a marble statue; Or Villanelle about a beautiful spindle, which is traded for trial. And under the spindle here is meant a woman of easy virtue selling her caresses to others.

Among other humorous works, it is necessary, for objectivity, to pay attention to essays of questionable content, glorifying alcohol and drunkenness. And they were created as parody imitations of serious church chants.

Distinctive features of creativity

Renaissance music would not be so bright and diverse, not so original and progressive, if not for the creative work of Orlando Lasso.

Lasso style is a harmonious mix of folk melodies and everyday scenes with sublime professional music and spiritual, instructive themes.

In his work, the great composer did not dwell on only one storyline or one genre. Using different styles and compositions, Orlando wrote his works on secular and spiritual themes, and the world of his music was multifaceted and varied. He could equally talently and realistically transmit sorrowful motives and humorous sound, subtle emotional experiences and passionate lustful desires, philosophical reflections and obscene adventures.

Using folk melodies and folkloric echoes, Lasso created compositions with complex colorful tunes of a large range, a virtuoso change in timbre and vibration.

In his songs the talented musician used extraneous sounds - street cries or family cues, gave them a unique dramatic character or a dance role, which was some innovation for the music of that time.

Personal life

Orlando Lasso married at the age of twenty-nine at the Bavarian noble lady Regine Vekinger. It was a long marriage of many children. It is noteworthy that two of the sons of the great composer - Rudolf and Ferdinand - later became good musicians.

Death

Lasso Orlando died in Munich at the age of sixty-two. Was buried under the Franciscan church.

Immediately after his death, he was installed a luxurious, red marble, monument. The gravestone depicted a picture of the burial of Christ, as well as the deceased with the descendants of the male, and his widow - with descendants of the female sex.

On the bas-relief was engraved a long laudatory epitaph, as well as the family coat of arms of Lasso.

Because of the riots that began in the 1800s in Bavaria, the fate of the gravestone is currently unknown.