Albums · Skopia

Every record chosen by hand and annotated for why it matters.
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6 records

Vespro della Beate Vergine

1610

Monteverdi sent it to the Pope hoping for a better job, and it mixes plainchant with writing that would have sounded like theater inside a church.

★ 3.9

1570

Forty separate voices in eight choirs of five, all of them independent, and at one point every single one sings at once.

★ 3.6

1562

The legend that it saved church polyphony from being banned is probably untrue, but the words really do stay audible through six voices.

★ 3.4

1502

The printer Ottaviano Petrucci issued it in 1502, in the first book of polyphony ever set in movable type. Four voices enter one at a time.

★ 3.3

1515

Josquin takes a plainchant hymn and dissolves it into four voices that imitate each other continuously, so the tune is everywhere and nowhere.

★ 2.9

1594

Byrd was a Catholic in Protestant England, and wrote these to be sung in secret at private houses. They were printed without title pages.

★ 2.6