MUSIC

Orlando de Lassus: Lagrime di San Pietro

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2023
7:00 PM

TENET Vocal Artists
St. Paul’s Chapel In Person & Live Stream
209 Broadway, FiDi, Manhattan

$11.90-$53.90
TICKETS + INFORMATION

Why is Orlando di Lassus such a particular favorite of this List? Probably it’s because he does all that florid Late Renaissaince stuff but, unlike with his peers Palestrina and Victoria, there’s always a strain of Franco-Flemish austerity underlying it: you might say his music is somehow florid without being really sensuous. (Which makes it seem peculiar, in a way, that, unlike his two peers, he is better known for secular music than sacred.) The Lagrime di San Pietro — 20 sacred madrigals and a motet — is his crowning acheivement, his last work (completed just weeks before he died), one of those late pieces where you can hear a master reviewing and synthesizing his entire œuvre. It leans heavily into his austere side — something that the excellent TENET Vocal Artists will temper somewhat in this performance by the controversial expedient of having brass accompany the vocal parts (nice to hear on occasion, but I prefer it straight myself).

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT: Wonder of if the new iteration of Manahatta is better than the mediocre original one. It certainly is high up.