Jonathan Knapp wrote:
>Unfortunatley, Alex, I don't think that there is an answer for your
>question, or at least not an easy one. I think it depends on your taste
>in choral music, but having said that I can offer a few opinions:
>
>1) The Golden Age of choral music is the Rennaisance. Palestrina is
>unquestionably the finest composer of modal, polyphonic works, especially
>his Stabat Mater, Missa Papae Marchelli, and motets. But there are dozens
>more great composers from this age with Dufay, Josquin, Jannequin, and even
>Dowland, Weelkes, Tye, Morley, and others.
It is not completely accurate to call Dowland (who wrote no choral music
at all) or for that matter any of the madrigalists truly choral composers.
It's a fine point indeed, but much of the early music which we now consider
to be choral in nature was written for one to a part singing. You cannot
really call a madrigal a choral piece, IMHO.
Kevin Sutton
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