composer
Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450-1517) is born in the Netherlands (Brabant, now Belgium) and like in so many biographies of early composers, very little is known about his education. He worked ...
related works
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK
Twee stukken : voor kamerkoor a cappella, op eigen teksten, 1982 / Bob Zimmerman
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
Arcadia 1689 : for large mixed choir a cappella / Klas Torstensson
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
GK4
Genre:
Vocal music
Subgenre:
Mixed choir
Scoring:
3sopr 3alt 3ten 3bas
composition
Missa Paschalis : for 5 voices / Isaac Heinrich; transcribed and edited by Cees Wagemakers
Other authors:
Wagemakers, Cees
(editor)
Description:
The Bavarian State Library (Bayerische Staats Bibliothek in Munich, Germany) has a unique collection of large folio format choirbooks from the Bavarian court music ensemble, predominantly from the time of Orlando di Lasso serving as court music director. Several splendidly illustrated choir books originally belonged to the personal collection of the Bavarian dukes. The most beautiful one is the collection of motets by Cipriano de Rore for Duke Albrecht V, also available at Donemus (D 16092). Choirbooks have all the parts on two facing pages, in contrast to the separate books for each voice that we see mostly in Renaissance editions.
The underlying Missa Paschalis from the beautifully calligraphed choirbook in Munich has only 4 parts, there is no Credo. A different Missa Paschalis (Easter Mass), for six voices, exists from Isaac’s hand as well. The mass in this book however is for 5 voices, one voice imitating an other most of the time, a so-called canonic mass. The Gloria seems to miss several parts. This is not the case however. One is supposed to sing the verses Benedicimus te and Glorificamus te etc. in plainchant in the eighth modus (octavi toni). The Agnus Dei part has only one setting of the verse with miserere nobis. In a make-shift liturgical performance this is repeated as such and once again sung with dona nobis pacem in stead of miserere nobis.
The Bavarian choirbook of which this mass is taken from, contains another 7 masses.
Cees Wagemakers, 2018