- Jacobus Gallus
Jacobus Gallus Carniolus (Jacob Handl or Jacob Handl-Gallus) (
July 3 ,1550 –July 18 ,1591 ) was a lateRenaissance composer of Slovene origin. [Skei/Pokorn, Grove online] Born in what is todayCarniola , part ofSlovenia , then part of theHabsburg Holy Roman Empire , he lived and worked inMoravia andBohemia during the last decade of his life.Life
Gallus may have been born with the name of "Jakob Petelin". [Reese, p. 736] Petelin means "rooster"; Handl and Gallus mean the same in German and Latin, respectively. [Skei/Pokorn: Grove online] He was born in Reifnitz,
Carniola (now Ribnica),Slovenia . He used theLatin form of his name, to which he often added the adjective "Carniolus", thus giving credit to his homelandCarniola .Gallus most likely was educated at the
Cistercian monastery at Stična in Carniola. He left Slovenia sometime between 1564 and 1566, traveling first to Austria, and later toBohemia ,Moravia , andSilesia . For some time he lived at theBenedictine Melk Abbey in Lower Austria. He was a member of theViennese court chapel in 1574, and was choirmaster ("Kapellmeister") to the bishop ofOlmütz ,Moravia between 1579 (or 1580) and 1585. From 1585 to his death he worked inPrague asorganist to the church sv. Jan na Zábradlí. Gallus died onJuly 18 ,1591 in Prague. [Skei/Pokorn, Grove online]Work
Gallus represented the
Counter-Reformation in Bohemia, mixing the polyphonic style of the High RenaissanceFranco-Flemish School with the style of theVenetian 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. [Reese, p. 736-738] [Skei/Pokorn, Grove online]His most notable work is the six part "Opus musicum", 1577, a collection of 374
motet s that would eventually cover the liturgical needs of the entire ecclesiastical year. The motets were printed in Prague printing houseJiří Nigrin . The motet "O magnum mysterium" comes from the first volume (printed in 1586) which covers the period from the first Sunday ofAdvent to theSeptuagesima . This motet for 8 voices shows evidence of influence by the Venetianpolychoral 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 ofCarlo Gesualdo . He enjoyedword painting in the style of the madrigal, yet he could write the simple "Ecce quomodo moritur justus" later used byGeorge Frideric Handel in his funeral anthem "The Ways of Zion Do Mourn".In the mentioned printing house Jiří Nigrin were also published 16 of his 20 extant masses.
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. [Skei/Pokorn, Grove online]Trivia
An image of Gallus appeared on the Slovenian 200 tolar bill, along with an image of the Slovene Philharmonic and a short excerpt from one of his mass settings.
References
*Allen B. Skei/Danilo Pokorn: "Jacobus Handl", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed March 23, 2008), [http://www.grovemusic.com (subscription access)]
*Gustave Reese , "Music in the Renaissance". New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304Notes
External links
*ChoralWiki
* [http://www.bsi.si/library/includes/slika.asp?SlikaId=64 Image of Gallus on Slovenian 200 tolarjev banknote]
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