Renaissance Recycling

Workshop for voices and instruments with Alison Kinder.

Reusing old material is not a new concept - Renaissance composers did it all the time, sometimes with their own material and sometimes with someone else's. We'll look at two such examples in this workshop, in both cases a kind of 'upcycling' from a short initial motet or chanson into an entire mass.

The first is a composer reworking his own material: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina's beautiful 6-voice motet Tu Es Petrus is gloriously expanded into a mass, not once, but twice! The first Missa Tu Es Petrus is also for 6 voices, but then he gets a bit carried away and does a setting for 18 voices in three choirs, still based on the same material. We'll do the motet and a movement from the 6-voice mass.

The second example is where one composer borrows a piece by someone else. At that time it was thought of as a compliment - today we'd call it plagiarism! The original piece is the beautiful 4-part chanson by Josquin, Mille Regretz, and the recycling is done by Cristobal de Morales, who uses it as the basis for a 6-voice mass setting.

All voices and instruments (strings, recorders, brass, double reeds) are welcome. Pitch A=440

Alison is a viol player with the Chelys Consort of Viols and with The Linarol Consort. She has a love of working with singers, and is the viol player for the female polyphonic ensemble Musica Secreta. Alison is an experienced and highly-regarded tutor.