University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 5-2019 PERSONA, PRINT, AND PROPAGANDA: ORLANDO DI LASSO AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF SELF IN COUNTER-REFORMATION BAVARIA Tara Leigh Jordan University of Tennessee, tjorda13@vols.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.edu/utk_gradthes Recommended Citation Jordan, Tara Leigh, "PERSONA, PRINT, AND PROPAGANDA: ORLANDO DI LASSO AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF SELF IN COUNTER-REFORMATION BAVARIA. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2019.edu/utk_gradthes/5458 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact trace@utk.
To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Tara Leigh Jordan entitled "PERSONA, PRINT, AND PROPAGANDA: ORLANDO DI LASSO AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF SELF IN COUNTER- REFORMATION BAVARIA." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music, with a major in Music. Rachel May Golden, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Nathan Fleshner, Jacqueline Avila Accepted for the Council: Dixie L. Thompson Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) PERSONA, PRINT, AND PROPAGANDA: ORLANDO DI LASSO AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF SELF IN COUNTER-REFORMATION BAVARIA A Thesis Presented for the Master of Music Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Tara Leigh Jordan May 2019 Copyright © 2019 by Tara Leigh Jordan. All rights reserved.
ii ABSTRACT Musicians often regard Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594) as Giovanni de Palestrina’s lesser-known, northern contemporary, with Palestrina standing as the pinnacle of Counter-Reformation sacred music in the current musicological canon. However, this conception of Lasso does not align with his reputation during his own time, where he stood as the most popular and cosmopolitan composer in Europe. In order to cultivate this reputation, Lasso exercised personal agency over his image as represented within his compositions and print publications, fashioning himself into a versatile and widely appealing musician that composed in every genre of both sacred and secular music. However, Lasso simultaneously presented himself as a pious, Catholic composer to his patrons, the Bavarian Wittelsbach dukes Albrecht and Wilhelm V, who led the Counter- Reformation in German-speaking lands.
In this way, Lasso presents a divided sense of his own selfhood. The duality of Orlando di Lasso’s sense of self demonstrates the crystallization of early modern conceptions of selfhood during the Renaissance era as detailed by scholars Susan McClary and Stephen Greenblatt. They argue that, while modern selfhood cemented itself in the seventeenth century, artists of the sixteenth century reflected the transition into this modern conception, often creating ambivalent or conflicted senses of themselves. In my work, I argue that Lasso exemplifies these trends of self-fashioning through his lifelong cultivation of the dual personas described above.
While studies of Lasso’s selfhood specifically do not exist, I draw from scholarship of William Byrd as a model for my own study and use a wide array of interdisciplinary scholarship from literary studies, religious studies, and history in addition to musicological work. I defend my argument through an examination of Lasso’s control of his prints, surrounding print culture, his personal and professional relationships, and an analysis of specific musical works including Missa pro defunctis, Locutus in sum lingua mea, Anna, mihi dilecta, and Fertur in conviviis. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One Introduction. 1 Scope and Parameters.
5 Methodology and Framing. 10 Review of Literature. 16 Overview of Thesis Contents. 21 Chapter Two Orlando di Lasso’s Pious Image and the Bavarian State.
24 Policies of the Bavarian State. 24 Lasso’s Persona within Bavaria. 38 Lasso’s Musically Devout Persona. 55 Chapter Three Lasso as a Cosmopolitan Entrepreneur.
56 Overview of Print Culture. 56 Lasso’s Self-Fashioning within Print Culture. 79 Chapter Four Synthesizing the Self. 95 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: A map of the Holy Roman Empire and surrounding Europe ca.2: Lasso’s setting of the Introit of the Requiem Mass, featuring a bass introduction followed by the placement of the original plainchant into the tenor I voice.3: The score of Te decet hymnus, showing Lasso’s homophonic setting as well as his quick resolution of dissonance.4: The opening of Locutus in sum lingea mea, featuring a leap of a perfect fifth in mm.
1-2 (cantus), as well as the imitation of the six voices as they enter one-by- one.5: This example features many key features of the work, including a homophonic cadence (mm. 23-24), a Phrygian cadence (mm. 27-28), and a homophonic cori spezzati section between the four interior voices (mm.1: The title page of Missa pro defunctis as printed by Adam Berg, showing the elaborate decoration of Lasso prints during this time.2: The opening 9 measures of Anna, mihi dilecta, showing the rare A-flat in m. 15-25 of Anna, mihi dilecta, showing the E-major chord accompanying “nympha” in mm.
15-16 and the half-step motion in the altus voice.4: The final page of Fertur in conviviis.5: A partbook print of the bassus voice of Fertur in conviviis. 78 v CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Musicians often regard Orlando di Lasso as Giovanni de Palestrina’s lesser-known, northern contemporary, with Palestrina standing as the pinnacle of Counter-Reformation sacred music in the current musicological canon. Because of this idea, Lasso remains understudied in musicological research, particularly in English.1 Music scholars, theorists and musicologists alike, often view his works in isolation from their surroundings, discounting the socio-religious and political aspects that influenced the composer throughout his lifetime. However, this misconception of Lasso does not align with his reputation during his own time, when he stood as the most popular, most printed, and most cosmopolitan composer in Western Europe.2 He held connections with musicians in France and Antwerp, as well as extensive Roman contacts, and curated his reputation through his publications.
Lasso also worked at the most important Catholic court outside of Rome, the Wittelsbach court of Bavaria, where he balanced his reputation and construction of his image with the theological concerns of the Bavarian Counter- Reformation. The extensive cultural changes of the Renaissance created unique circumstances for people’s formation of their own individuality and selfhood. Within the medieval era, human life had centered around institutions and communities, with very little focus on the 1 Many landmark works on Lasso exist exclusively in French or German, such as compilations by Wolfgang Boetticher and the comprehensive biographical volume published by Annie Couerdevey. For these works, see Wolfgang Boetticher, Orlando di Lasso und seine Zeit, I.
2 James Haar, “Orlando di Lasso, Composer and Print Entrepreneur,” in Music and the Cultures of Print, ed. Kate Van Orden (New York: Garland, 2000), 137.3 However, as Renaissance humanism began to emerge, it “brought an end to the communal character of medieval society” and gave way to the rise of the individual.4 Despite this seemingly clean-cut delineation, scholars Charles Park and Jerry Bentley argue that selfhood studies “which assume a linear development of individualism and individual subjectivity. can no longer be sustained;” instead, a unique situation arose in the Renaissance, in which individualism and communal values “created and re-created one another in the major structures, interactions, and transitions of early modern times.”5 In other words, the individual and the institution consistently reworked and relied upon one another during this time of transition. This interaction was particularly apparent among musicians, who began to formulate their own styles as individuals while also working within the strict, institutional restraints of the patronage system.
Orlando di Lasso’s sense of self as a multitalented composer began in his early years as a musician. In his youth, he worked in Franco-Flemish lands before traveling to Italy, where he worked in the Gonzaga court of Mantua; subsequently, he secured a position as the maestro di capella at S Giovanni in Laterano in Rome (1553).6 He then returned northward due to his ailing parents, visiting France, England, and Antwerp, where he began his print career by publishing a collection featuring Italian madrigals, French chansons, and motets in 1555, entitled Le quatoirsiesme livre a quatre parties contenant dixhuyct chansons italiennes, six chansons francoises, & six motetz faictz (a la 3 Charles H. Parker and Jerry H. Bentley, Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: Individual and Community in the Early Modern World (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), 1-4.
6 James Haar, “Lassus [Orlando di Lasso], Orlande [Roland] de,” Grove Music Online (2001). https://doi-org. 2 nouvelle composition d-aucuns d’Italie).7 This publication highlighted Lasso’s flexibility and skill; scholar James Haar argues that Lasso’s release of this compiled volume “looks as if Lasso meant to advertise his versatility, proudly displaying his wares for buyers and for putative patrons. the young Lasso already had a shrewd sense of self-promotion.”8 He soon secured a singing position in Munich under Duke Albrecht V, who likely desired to employ the composer due to his status as a Catholic musician that previously worked in an important Roman church; his record of published works likely would have appealed to the Duke as well.
Lasso remained employed at the Wittelsbach court until his death in 1594, after his promotion to Kapellmeister. It was in Munich that Lasso cultivated his dual self-image. Due to the demands of his Bavarian patrons, he adopted the persona of a pious, Counter-Reformation Catholic in addition to a versatile composer and commercially oriented musical businessman. Albrecht V, and later his son Wilhelm V, led the Counter-Reformation campaign in the region through a series of reforms that required the participation of members of their court.
Musical censorship took a key role in these reforms, as detailed by Alexander Fisher, and the Bavarian state banned music widely, including both Protestant and “inappropriate” Catholic music.9 Lasso’s approved compositions provided an alternative to these banned works. 7 Haar, “Lassus, Orlande de.” Musicologists often refer to this volume as Lasso’s “Opus 1;” importantly, it includes a variety of Italian songs [“chansons italiennes”], French chansons [“chansons francoises”], and motets in the Italian style [“motetz faictz (a la nouvelle composition d-aucuns d’Italie)]. From Kristine Forney, “Orlando Di Lasso’s ‘Opus 1’: The Making and Marketing of a Renaissance Music Book,” Revue Belge de Musicologie 39/40 (1985): 33-60. 8 Haar, “Orlando di Lasso,” 131.
9 Alexander Fisher, Music, Piety, and Propaganda: The Soundscapes of Counter-Reformation Bavaria (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 3 Meanwhile, Lasso’s stylistic marketability allowed the composer to appeal to audiences throughout Europe. Haar claims that, by the time of the composer’s death, “half of all the music prints in the second half of the sixteenth century contained work by Lasso.”10 While Lasso wrote most of his works for his Bavarian patrons, their musical needs did not limit his compositional techniques; during his time in Munich, he wrote a vast amount of music in all genres, including masses and motets as well as madrigals and chansons. Unlike Palestrina, his works span the full gamut of the Renaissance musical tradition; he composed in the highly conservative style preferred by the Catholic Church and in the innovative mannerist style, which featured chromaticism and distortion of accepted musical elements.11 Lasso cultivated his own reputation as the most important composer of the era through this stylistic variation, as well as through print publications and his connections to religious and state leaders in France, Rome, and the Holy Roman Empire; at the same time, he steadfastly remained under the employment of the Wittelsbach family, composing works for their Counter-Reformation propaganda effort.
Though his stature decreased after his death, during his lifetime, Orlando di Lasso nurtured a status as a respected and versatile composer through his careful management of his music in print and his diplomatic relationships with religious and secular leaders throughout Europe.