Ronald Cross

 

Music History: Ancient to Early Renaissance

"The only thing new in the world is the history that you don't know."

 

 

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    Some musical knowledge is necessary to take this course.  The course begins with the first possible music and what it meant, and continues with pre-historic music (and music of "simple" cultures still found today); changes brought by civilization; music in antiquity and in Egypt; Greek music (tetrachords, the Greater and Lesser Perfect Systems, modes, ethos); early Christian monody (branches of chant, types of chant, the development of liturgy, forms of plainsong, the singing of Psalms in Gregorian notation, sources of plainsong, the plainsong revival of recent times); organum (the development of early organum, changes that lead to melismatic organum, the School of Notre Dame); the development of the motet; Ars nova and trecento notation; Ars subtilior; the creation of Renaissance style; the Contenance Angloise; the music of Guillaume Dufay; the contrapuntal mastery of the Franco-Flemings and Johannes Ockeghem; the perfection of style in Josquin's Masses; music of the Reformation; the polyphonic French chanson; the canzona francese and early instrumental music. As time permits, an introduction to the elegant density of Gombert and his generation; the detail technique of Palestrina and his generation.  The aim of this course is to provide a framework on which to expand one's knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of music.
    There are six written tests based on class lectures and Notes to the Listenings. There are eight listening tests based on a series of selected examples.  Extensive Notes that accompany the listening examples form a major component the class material. There is a substantial term paper.

    There is a lab component for the course that must be completed to receive credit. This consists of five required class trips to concerts in Manhattan.  The concerts are required and make up 20 percent of the final grade. These are scheduled on week-ends.

Pieces  performed by Ronald Cross on the harpsichord Concert trips

John Bull, Gigge  (from The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book)

George Frideric Handel, Allman, from Suite no. 5 (2nd Set)

Works by Bach performed by Ronald Cross on the organ at St. Thomas, 5th Ave. & 53rd St.  

Chorale-prelude, Nun freut euch, lieben Christen gmein, BWV 734 ("Rejoice Now Good Christians")

Wer nur den Lieben Gott lässt walten, BWV 647 (from the Six Schübler Chorales) ("If Thou But Suffer God to Guide Thee")

Fughetta super Wir glauben all an einem Gott, BWV 681 (= Credo) (from "The German Organ Mass," Pt. 3 of the Klavierübung)

Fantasia et Fuga in c minor  , BWV 537 (11'30")

Concert trips for Fall, 2007

Sunday, Sept 16, St. Thomas Church, Evensong and Organ Recital, 4:00

Sunday, Sept 23, Christ Episcopal Church, S.I., Ex umbris, Elizabethan music

Sunday, Sept 30, Corpus Christi Church, Pomerium Musices, Dufay, Ockeghem, Obrecth, Josquin, Palestrina

Sunday, Oct. 14,Cathedral of St. John, Stravaganza Veneziana, Early Music New York

Sunday, Nov. 17, St. Mary the Virgin, Vox vocale, Music of Robert Parsons.

You can listen to Pomerium perform the beautiul Deploration sur la mort de Jean Ockeghem ("Lamentation  on the Death of Johannes Ockeghem") Nymphes du bois/Requiem aeternam, by Josquin des Prez at the Music Before1800 web-site

                               Previous concerts have included... 

Sequentia, Songs of a Rhineland Harper, Corpus Christi Church

Ex umbris: Dancing in the Shadow of the Cross, Melancholy or Down in the Dumps in Elizabethan England, Joust of the Medici

St. Thomas, Evensong and Organ Recital, Organ Recitals

The King's Musick, Henry VIII and the Tudor Court c. 1500, Early Music NY, Frederick Renz, Cathedral of St. John

Greek Orthodox Holy Trinity Cathedral of St. Peter

Trio Mediaeval: Messe de Tournai, Italian laude, works by Perotin, Corpus Christi Church

Hindustani Music of India: Ustad Vilayat Khan and others, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center

Pomerium musice: Early French music; Music for the Confraternity of the 7 Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Philip Glass: Galileo Galilei, Brooklyn Academy of Music 

Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France: La mer, Claude Debussy; Olivier Messiaen, Turangalila Symphony

The Dresden Virtuosi: Fasch, Veracini, Weiss, Zelenka, Bach, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church  

Gotham City Baroque Ensemble: Francisco Valls, Missa Scala Aretina, Casa Italiana, Columbia

Concertos for Two Harpsichords, J. S. Bach, Castleton Hill Moravian Church

Lecture recital, Komŭn’go, sponsored by ACE