Room 56--Down in the "bass"ment

How low can you go? In the case of this Kyrie taken from Missa sine nomine (Mass without Name) by Johannes Tinctoris (ca1435-1511), a low D-flat below the bass staff. It’s written for three male voices, two of which are asked to sing extremely low pitches. One wonders for whom this work was originally written. They must have been rather special gents. In addition to being a composer, Tinctoris created the earliest dictionary of musical terms. Listen!

This is from a recording made about 1975 by the glorious Early Music Consort of London directed by David Munrow. You can read about him in D.O.’s blog IN THE Poetry Plaza of The Grand Salon. This recording was on the EMI label. The catalog number is 64215.

For more info about Johannes Tinctoris, go to his article in Wikipedia, by clicking here.

For David Munrow’s website, click here.

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