Jacobus Gallus Carniolus [a.k.a. Jacob(us) Handl,
Jacob(us) Händl, Jacob(us) Gallus; Slovene: Jakob
Petelin Kranjski[ (1550 – 1591) was a
late-Renaissance composer of Slovene ethnicity. Born in
Carniola, which at the time was one of the Habsburg
lands in the Holy Roman Empire, he lived and worked in
Moravia and Bohemia during the last decade of his life.
He may have been named Jakob Petelin at birth. Petelin
means "rooster"; handl and gallus mean the same in
German and Latin, respectively. He...(+)
Jacobus Gallus Carniolus [a.k.a. Jacob(us) Handl,
Jacob(us) Händl, Jacob(us) Gallus; Slovene: Jakob
Petelin Kranjski[ (1550 – 1591) was a
late-Renaissance composer of Slovene ethnicity. Born in
Carniola, which at the time was one of the Habsburg
lands in the Holy Roman Empire, he lived and worked in
Moravia and Bohemia during the last decade of his life.
He may have been named Jakob Petelin at birth. Petelin
means "rooster"; handl and gallus mean the same in
German and Latin, respectively. He was probably born in
Reifnitz (now Ribnica, southern Slovenia), although
Slovene folk tradition also claims his birthplace to be
at Šentviška Gora in the Slovenian Littoral. He used
the Latin form of his name, to which he often added the
adjective Carniolus, thus giving credit to his homeland
Carniola.
Harmoniae morales from printer Jiří Nigrin,
1589
Gallus most likely was educated at the Cistercian
Stična Monastery in Carniola. He left Carniola
sometime between 1564 and 1566, traveling first to
Austria, and later to Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. For
some time he lived at the Benedictine 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 between 1579 (or 1580) and 1585.
From 1585 to his death he worked in Prague as organist
to the Church of St. John on the Balustrade (Czech: Sv.
Jan na Zábradlí). Gallus died on 18 July 1591 in
Prague.
Gallus represented the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia,
mixing the polyphonic style of the High Renaissance
Franco-Flemish School with the style of the Venetian
School. His output was both sacred and secular, and
hugely prolific: over 500 works have been attributed to
him. Some are for large forces, with multiple choirs of
up to 24 independent parts.
Tenor voice part of Gallus' Ecce quomodo moritur
iustus, published in his Opus Musicum II (1587).
His most notable work is the six-part Opus musicum,
1587, 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, which also published 16 of his 20
extant masses. 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.
His secular output, about 100 short pieces, was
published in the collections Harmoniae morales (Prague
1589 and 1590) and Moralia (Nuremberg 1596). Some of
these works were madrigals in Latin, an unusual
language for the form (most madrigals were in Italian);
others were songs in German, and others were
compositions in Latin.
Critical editions of Gallus works have been prepared by
Edo Škulj and published by the Research Centre of the
Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRCSAZU).
Gallus has been commemorated with the naming of the
central hall in the Cankar Centre Gallus Hall
(Gallusova dvorana). Part of the right embankment of
the river Ljubljanica in Ljubljana, stretching from St.
James's Bridge to the Cobbler's Bridge, has the name
Gallus Embankment (Gallusovo nabrežje). This is also
the name of the left embankment of the river Bistrica
in the town of Ribnica, his birthplace. A monument with
a bronze head of the composer, work by the architect
Jože Plečnik and the sculptor Lojze Dolinar [sl]
from 1932, as well as a stone plaque from 1973 also
commemorate him there. The plaque was originally
installed already in 1933 but destroyed during World
War II. The Slovenian Public Fund of Cultural
Activities annually awards the deserving musicians the
Bronze, Silver, and Gold Gallus Badges (Gallusova
značka) and the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Gallus
Citations (Gallusova plaketa). Gallus was depicted on
the front side of the now-obsolete 200-tolar banknote
of the Republic of Slovenia.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobus_Gallus).
Although originally composed for Choir (SATB), I
created this Interpretation of Three Medieval Chorals
for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
