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The music of Cipriano De Rore

Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem'


A. Type: Mis
B. Number of voices: 7vv


E. To be found in the following score sources:

following: _Onderzoek van de bron (internet) door Arnold Loose en/of Wim Daeleman (2016) :
- BSB Mus.ms. 46 (ca.1565) : 'BSB Mus.ms. 46 (ca.1565)'
- 1555-1563, circa - (source: BenteNW) : {Census} - MunBS 46 : '{Census} - MunBS 46'

following: Meier, Bernardus (1966) :
- {Meier_VII} - Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. Ms. 46 (Maier No. 18) : '{Meier_VII} - Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. Ms. 46 (Maier No. 18)'


F. Modern score:

See 'Meier, Bernardus : Cipriani Rore Opera Omnia, Vol VII : Missae' : p.55

  • Contents of this volume of Meier
  • American Institute of Musicology : Uitgave De Rore (B. Meier)


    H. Content:

  • Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem' : 1 Kyrie, 7vv (Misdeel) - [5, 0 Refs., , +Tne]
  • Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem' : 2 Gloria, 7vv (Misdeel) - [7, 0 Refs., , +Tnfe]
  • Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem' : 3 Credo, 7vv (Misdeel) - [5, 0 Refs., , +Tnfe]
  • Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem' : 4 Sanctus, 7vv (Misdeel) - [5, 0 Refs., , +Tne]
  • Missa ‘Praeter rerum seriem' : 5 Agnus Dei, 7vv (Misdeel) - [6, 0 Refs., , +Tne]


  • Jr. Radio:

    1 - ' WDR3 2010-09-01 (0u00) (WDR3 (Germany))

    L. References:

    References with citation/remark:

    1 : Owens, Jessie Ann, Cipriano De Rore (The New Grove) (, 2001)
    in : Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, The New -, (NG), Second Edition (published in twenty-nine volumes in the year 2001), Edited by Stanley Sadie, Executive Editor John Tyrell, (2001) : 'Two extraordinary masses securely date from the period of his tenure in Ferrara (1546–59), probably from the mid-1550s. These are the two masses composed in honour of Duke Ercole: the five-voice Missa Vivat felix Hercules and the seven-voice Missa Praeter rerum seriem. In both masses, de Rore acknowledged his status as maestro di cappella at the court of Ferrara and thus as inheritor of the position held by his great predecessor, Josquin des Prez. He paid double homage to his patron and to Josquin himself, while at the same time, through artistic means, seeking to surpass Josquin. [. . .] Missa Praeter rerum seriem takes as its model the motet by Josquin, and adds a chant-based cantus firmus, ‘Hercules secundus dux Ferrariae quartus vivit et vivet’. [. . .] Three of de Rore’s five masses were copied into manuscripts for Munich in the 1550s, and the duke knew de Rore’s music well enough to ask for a copy of Missa Praeter rerum seriem by name in 1557. His comments about the music, in the letter he sent thanking Duke Ercole for having sent the mass, are extraordinary in their appreciation for de Rore and for Ercole as his patron.'

    2 : Mancini, Donato, Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem : Composition Description ()
    in : All Music Guide (www.allmusic.com), : www.allmusic.com : Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem : 'In his masses, Cipriano de Rore makes an overt attempt to place himself in the illustrious line of composers of the Franco-Flemish tradition. As such, his Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem is both an homage and challenge to Josquin Desprez, who was Rore's greatest predecessor in this line, and his greatest predecessor as maestro di cappella at the Este court in Ferrara. This monumental work for seven voices is a parody mass on a motet by Josquin, and uses also a cantus firmus on a text that honors Ercole II d'Este. The mass was immediately recognized in its day for what it was: a work of major importance and of stupefying beauty. Although not published in Rore's lifetime, the Missa Praeter was well known enough that Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria requested a copy of it by name. Rore wrote few masses, due to the circumstances of his employment, and he clearly made a special effort to put every rhetorical device and compositional trick he knew into the Missa Praeter, using the opportunity to thoroughly demonstrate his mastery of Franco-Flemish polyphonic traditions. In places, it has a song-like candor of line drawn from the influence of Josquin, but has also a highly developed harmonic sense that perhaps stems from Willaert. The Sanctus is the most stripped-down of the movements. Here Rore's particular ease with long phrases can be best appreciated, in lines that are both clearly designed and of inspired fluidity. His line here isn't one that maps out a reading of a particular word or emotion, but one that sets out on an adventurous course through shades of conflicting emotions and hovers with discreet musical tensions. Rore's mass is so richly nuanced that the particularity of a feeling is never stable. In the fuller movements, when more voices are present, the music is monumental, something listeners meekly experience almost cowering from the inside. The vocal densities are constantly changing, while the climatic and hot points in the lines and those occurring in the harmonies are often misaligned to beautifully disorient the senses. Rore here works with a psychological and technical complexity that only a master rhetorician such as he can handle without the music becoming unruly'

    References without citation:

    3 : Nuernberger, L. Dean, The Five-Voiced Madrigals of Cipriano de Rore. (University of Michigan Press , 1963)
    - p.19-20

    4 : Abraham, Gerald, The New Oxford History of Music, IV, The age of humanism; 1540-1630 (Oxford University Press, London, New York, Toronto, 1968)
    - p.288


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