Cipriano de Rore

Born in Ronse, Flanders, in 1515 or 1516, Cipriano de Rore was of the Franco-Flemish school of polyphony. He filled his career with Italian madrigals and sacred music for the Roman Church. Speculation has Rore studying music in Naples in 1533 while serving Margaret of Parma before her marriage to Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, in 1536. He was probably writing music by that time. He probably studied under Adrian Willaert in Venice before 1542. Rore's composing began to become of note upon arriving to Brescia that year, where he was employed while publishing his first of seven books of madrigals in Venice, 'I madrigali a cinque voci', in which he comments that he was a student of Willaert. Rore followed with two volumes of motets in 1544 and '45.

In 1546 Rore became maestro di cappella for Duke Ercole II d'Este in Ferrara. His madrigal a 4, 'Ancor che col partire' ('Although when I part from you'), saw publishing the next year in Venice in Antonio Gardano's 'Primo libro di madrigali a quatro voci' devoted largely to works by Perissone Cambio, another famous composer of madrigals. All of Rore's secular works below arrived while in the service of the Duke who awarded Rore a benefice (estate) in 1556. Stacking is per publishing dates.

'Ancor che col partire'   Madrigal a 4 by Cipriano de Rore

Pub 1547 in Venice by Gardano in 'Primo libro di madrigali a quatro voci'

Quinta Essência directed by Xavier Pijuan   Barcelona   June 2017

'Qual donna attende a gloriosa fama'   Madrigal a 5 by Cipriano de Rore

'Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame'

Pub 1548 in 'Il terzo libro de madrigali a cinque voci'

Instrumental SATTB evaluation by Vincenzo Barocchieri

'Mon petit coeur n'est pas à moi'   French chanson a 8 by Cipriano de Rore

'My little heart is not my own'

Pub 1550 in 'Treziesme livre contenant vingt et deux chansons'

MS: Partbook: DK-Kk MS Gamle kongelige Samling 1873   Copenhagen c 1556

Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel

'Io canterei d'amor si novamente'   Madrigal a 4 by Cipriano de Rore

'I would sing of love in such a new way'   Text: Petrarch's 'Sonnet 131'

Pub 1550 [CPDL] or 1551 [Princeton] in Ferrara in 'Il primo libro de madrigali a quatro voci'

Musica Figurata

'Mia benigna fortuna e 'l viver lieto'   Madrigal a 4 by Cipriano de Rore

'My kindly fate and life made happy'

Pub 1557 in Venice in Gardano's 'Il secondo libro de madrigali a quatro voci'

Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel

The Duke awarded him a benefice (estate) in 1556. In 1558 Rore revisited Florence, stopping in Munich along the way where his music was appreciated by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. His 'Missa Praeter rerum seriem a 7' was included in the D-Mbs Mus. MS 46 compiled in Munich circa 1555-63 for Albrecht. That was a parody (imitation) in six movements from Kyrie through Agnes Dei of Josquin's motet setting of 'Praeter rerum seriem' published in 1520. In 1559 Rore made a second trip to Flanders where his career fell into disarray for a time, his hometown ravaged by the Dutch Wars of Independence launching the Eighty-Years War against the House of Habsburg which in its alliance with the Papacy was basically all of Europe excepting Protestant territories in Germany (Lutheran, then Calvinist) and England (Anglican), France (friend of neither the Roman brand of Catholicism nor the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire) and Venice (staunch ally of the Roman Church and buffering off the Ottoman Empire to the East along the Adriatic. Sacred works below were published 1558 or later.

Kyrie of 'Missa Praeter rerum seriem a 7'   Cipriano de Rore

'This is no normal scheme of things'

Copied into the Munich D-Mbs Mus. MS 46 sometime 1558-63

Helios   2021

'Descendi in hortum meum'   Motet a 7 by Cipriano de Rore

'I went down into my garden'

Marian antiphon from 'Song of Solomon'

MS: No.1 of '26 Motets' (BSB Mus.ms. B) 1559

Quire Cleveland directed by Ross Duffin

'Sub tuum praesidium confugimus, Sancta Dei Genitrix'   Motet a 4 by Cipriano de Rore

'We fly to thy patronage, Holy Mother of God'

Marian antiphon   MS: No.6 of '26 Motets' (BSB Mus.ms. B) 1559

Weser-Renaissance Bremen directed by Manfred Cordes

'Da Pacem, Domine'   Motet a 5 by Cipriano de Rore

'Give peace, Lord'

MS: No.18 of '26 Motets' (BSB Mus.ms. B) 1559

Weser-Renaissance Bremen directed by Manfred Cordes

'Parce Mihi, Domine'   Motet a 5 by Cipriano de Rore

'Spare me, Lord'   Text from 'Job 7:16-21'

Comp sometime at least 1558 or later   Pub posthumously in 1595

Contrapunctus directed by David Acres

Duke Ercole II died on 3 October 1559 while Rore was in Flanders. He thus began working in Parma, traveling there by way of Paris, but is said to have been frustrated working for the Farnese court of the Church. He finally managed to acquire a position he thought he could live with in 1563 as organist at St. Mark's Basilica in Venice upon Willaert's death. But he left the next year, perhaps for insufficient pay. Howsoever, Cipriano ended up in Parma again, only to die the next year in September of 1565 not yet fifty years old. Cipriano had written above a hundred madrigals and more than fifty motets among other sacred works.