Orlande de Lassus was a Flemish-born composer, one of the greatest musical figures in the Renaissance.
Background
Lassus was born circa 1530 at Mons, in the ancient province of Hainault, today part of Belgium.
His name appears in many forms - particularly as Orlandus Lassus, a Latin version, or as Orlando di Lasso, an italianization used by the composer himself, and sometimes as Rolande de Lattre.
Career
The biographers tell a rather extraordinary tale of his boyhood. While he was a choirboy in the cathedral of Mons, his beautiful voice attracted the attention of an Italian nobleman, the viceroy of Sicily, who was campaigning in the Low Countries. The viceroy took the boy from the choir school despite his parents' protests and carried him off to Italy. There is, however, no record of such an occurrence in the Mons cathedral archives.
Later we hear of Lassus in Naples, apparently under a new patron, and eventually at Rome, where, now a young man of about 22 years, he became choir master at the Lateran basilica of St. John. Later, Lassus returned to Mons, and, finding his parents had died, he traveled about France, and perhaps to England. He settled for a time at Antwerp, where he published his first motets and madrigals. While in that city he accepted an invitation from the reigning prince of Bavaria, Duke Albert, to join the prince's musical establishment at Munich.
He arrived in Munich in 1556 or 1557 and spent the rest of his life there in the ducal service, soon taking entire charge of the music of the court. In an age when musicians were often merely menials in a noble household (even Bach, more than a century later, wore a footman's uniform as a young man), Lassus soon won the esteem of his employer.
Lassus' life was now comparatively uneventful, mainly devoted, with the aid and encouragement of his patron, to composing and publishing an unending flow of music. There were, however, important interludes - visits to France and Italy (where the pope made him a Knight of St. George). On his first visit to France he was introduced to the king by a music publisher appropriately named Le Roy. Lassus' fame spread over Europe.
A second French visit was associated with the idea of accepting a post at the French court. The king of Saxony negotiated for his services, and there were offers from Italian courts, but his Bavarian employer, aware of all this, wisely induced Lassus to sign a life contract with him. The last few years of Lassus' life were clouded by a melancholy that apparently affected his health, for the Duke relieved him of most of his duties and gave him a substantial pension and a house in the country.
Lassus, too, regarded music as a mirror for reflecting every facet of the social scene -the lamenting sinner, the romantic melancholy of a Renaissance poem, a domestic quarrel, or a drunken peasant. Lassus' reputation as a church composer rests mainly upon his incomparable motets. His Masses, although of fine musical quality, have not that deeply spiritual, devotional quality which places those of his contemporaries Giovanni Pierluigi de Palestrina and Tomas Luis de Victoria in the category of supreme religious art.
In the field of secular music Lassus displays a genius unrivaled by any contemporary. Here his command of wit and satire had full play, especially in those short pieces that picture things and scenes of everyday life. Some typical examples of his subjects are the young wife lamenting a crusty old husband ("Quand mon mari"), the comic lawyer ("Un avocat"), a young monk ("Jeune Moine"), the bacchanalian "Sauter et Danser" ("Leaping and Dancing"), a serenade by a mercenary soldier ("Matona mia cara"), a lover's serenade ("Tritt Auf"), and a picture of the loved one ("Little Anne"). From early days in Italy Lassus cultivated the madrigal, drawing his verses from the treasurehouse of Renaissance poets, both Italian and French - Petrarch, Ariosto, Ronsard, and their contemporaries - and matching their lines with music of equal beauty.
He had witty and genial personality; Lassus often entertained his employers with clever skits on music and musicians. He even produced a musical comedy for the court's amusement.
Connections
In 1558 he married Regina Wäckinger, the daughter of a maid of honor of the Duchess. They had two sons, both of whom became composers, and his daughter married the painter Hans von Aachen.