Sacred vocal music of the Renaissance

Sacred music in Mantua, at the House of Gonzaga.

The second concert program proposed this year by Les Voix Animées at Le Thoronet Abbey is dedicated to Giaches de Wert, master of the Palace chapel of Santa Barbara in Mantua.

Like many Franco-Flemish cantors from the Renaissance, Giaches de Wert was welcomed, trained and employed very young in the sumptuous Italian churches.

The presence of Giaches de Wert in Mantua ensured the musical reputation of the ducal city and attracted lots of musicians, among which Claudio Monteverdi. Like his contemporaries, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina in Roma or Orlande de Lassus in Munich, Giaches de Wert, through his art of the counterpoint brings to the « stile antico » an unprecedented expressive richness, which announces the new baroque art. The motets of this concert are taken from two collections published in Venice in 1581 at Girolamo Scotto’s : « Il secondo libro de motetti a cinque voci » and « Modulationum cum sex vocibus liber primus ».

Motets by Giaches de Wert.

11th concert cycle « Entre pierres et mer »

In 2022, Les Voix Animées are celebrating Italy by dedicating their concert cycle to the composers of the Cinquecento and by paying a particular tribute to two major composers of the Renaissance, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Giaches de Wert.

These two masters, through an absolute art of the counterpoint, made the music of the Papal Chapel spread, as well as the music of the House of Gonzaga in Mantua. Their leading light inspired a generation of musicians and accompanied, throughout all Europe, the transformation of the Renaissance’s « stile antico » to the Baroque’s « stile nuovo ».