WORKSHOPS

One of the most spectacular works of the entire Renaissance, Striggio’s Great Mass had been lost for almost four centuries until it was rediscovered in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris by Davitt Moroney, world-renowned harpsichordist and musicologist. Davitt, famous for his lively public lectures and concerts, will tell the story of this fascinating work that he spent twenty years trying to locate. The work was miscataloged, under the wrong name, and under the wrong title.

Dating from 1566-67, it is one of the most extravagant pieces ever composed in the history of music. Most of the mass is written for forty voices (five eight-part choirs and ten times the normal arrangement for a choir), but it expands to sixty voices in the last movement of the thirty-minute work.

The story of this mass is about a particularly spectacular manifestation of musical culture in 16th-century Florence. Alessandro Striggio the Elder was the highest paid composer at the Medici court, earning twice as much as any other composer. No story about the immensely wealthy Medici family and about Florence would be complete without its share of popes and emperors and political intrigue.

The lecture will be held in the Schiro room in the Special Collections area on the 5th floor of the library.