Pierre Certon's Missa pro defunctis
  • francis
    Posts: 10,882
    Does anybody have a modern rendition of this work?
  • I would like to revive this question and add: does anybody have any rendition of this work? (facsimile, parts...) It's seems impossible to get access to this master piece?
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,826
    Gallica had 87 search results, but Missa pro defunctis was pretty near the head of the list.
    Thanked by 1Polyfollia
  • I'm surprised that there isn't a modern edition available. Ligatures are a lot chewier than the end-of-century stuff I'm used to, and there's that big blotch on the superius of the Gallica exemplar (there are others listed on RISM, but not online). And I can't download this for some reason. But let me play with it.
    Thanked by 1Polyfollia
  • I did the Introit last night (minus the chant bits) and half the Kyrie. So far I'm not as enthusiastic as Polyfollia, but it's solid, and the way Certon handles the chant is interesting. I found the recording on Spotify and used it to fill in the Superius blob, and have Ross Duffin's cheat sheet in front of me for the ligatures. (I'm used to later music where almost everything is c.o.p. and I don't have to think much.)

    No promises when/if I'll get this done; I've tended to avoid doing whole Masses because they clash with my ADD. But check back with me in a month and we'll se where we are.

    It's a pretty severe style, esp. considering the music Certon is most known for.
  • Best X'mas wishes to everyone! Answering Jeffrey Quick I would like to put into perspective my enthusiasm. It grew mainly due to the "find" of another renaissance Missa pro defunctis or Requiem! After editing and performing Requiems of Rimonte, Richafort, Vaet, Morales, Victoria (2), Clemens non papa, Manchicourt, Duarte Lobo, de Monte, Lasso, Romero, Guerrero and others, I'm constantly on the lookout for "new" polyphonic Requiems as my singers are just as fond of the genre as I am... I must also admit that Certon's version does not exactly seem to contain "earth-shattering" things... I hope that Jeffrey may indeed complete his reconstruction of the Certon. Very curious and grateful, Jan.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,103
    OK, it's done, and up on cpdl. The piece has been growing on me; I could see myself being planted to this. OTOH, the production has been a pain. I have 2 versions: one at original pitch and note values for ATTB, and a "parish version" up a minor third with reduced note values for SATB, with some exchange of alto and tenor in the Domine Jesu Christe, which is in tenor clef originally. Dorico made reducing those values quite easy, but the architecture of accidentals and lines meant that I had to enter ficta and ligature brackets all over again. Plus I have no source files up: Dorico won't export a multi-flow project as one .xml file, and I'm not sure management wants 16 xml files on that page. And cpdl won't accept .dorico as a file type, though .mus and .sib are just fine. Now I need to take a vacation from editions.
  • CGM
    Posts: 710
    Jeffrey, nice edition you've got there. How have you found the transition from Finale to Dorico? Your output looks good, so Dorico is working as intended. How much mental wrangling was required to move from ye olde platform of many moons (and decades) to ze neue one?

  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,103
    It hasn't been bad at all.
    I actually had Dorico 1.0 and at that point didn't get on with it. The value before note was confusing, as was the treatment of rests. I kept on getting upgrades, because I liked the idea of Dorico, but I wasn't using it. Then we were orphaned, and I figured I needed to learn it. And once I accepted the program on its own terms, without thinking it should work like Finale, I liked it better than Finale. The main issue was learning what things are called and where they'd be likely to live.
    Advantages:
    1. Layout is much more automatic. I'm still a little clumsy with the text token thing, but I find that by the time I get to Engrave mode, I'm 90% there
    2. Not thinking in bars is a game-changer, particularly for early music. I can just enter and it doesn't matter if the whole note will go over the barline.
    3. Use of SMuFL characters is more flexible and intuitive.
    The one thing I think that Finale does better than Dorico is musica ficta. One can enter the accidental you want to hear, and move it above the note, and it will transpose properly if you transpose the score. With Dorico, you have to add and hide the accidental and then add it above as a Playing Technique. (though I just learned there's a way to do it using figured bass). If your sharp turns into a natural, you have to delete and start over (plus when you transpose, your hidden accidentals become unhidden)

    I still haven't worked with condensing, or percussion writing (which was a pain in Finale too). Or nuts advanced stuff like using Dorico to drive Hauptwerk. Baby steps.
    Thanked by 3CGM CHGiffen Polyfollia