Arcadelt’s Bass

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Contemporary Australia composition for Recorder Quartet by Diana Blom for Treble, 2 x Tenors and Bass recorder.

"I was visiting The International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna in 2004, not long after it had opened, and amongst a particularly fine collection of musical instruments and portraits of composers, noticed a manuscript fragment. Dated 1539, Venice, the fragment was part of a bass line from a madrigal by Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer, Jacques Arcadelt (c.1507-1568). I copied the bass line fragment onto a piece of paper and thought it might form the basis of a composition in the future.

When Peter Petocz from The Judgement of Paris asked for a piece for recorder quartet for a new project the group was planning, I immediately thought of the fragment and with the help of musicologist, Associate Professor Kathleen Nelson of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, tracked down the full score in Il Secondo Libro di Madrigali – madrigal 20 (Albertus Seay’s 1967 edition), ‘Desio perchè mi meni? Peter Petocz suggested the lower recorder quartet combination of bass, two tenors and alto for the piece.

Arcadelt’s Bass (2018) draws the bass line fragment into several contrapuntal moods, reflecting one of the compositional techniques of the fragment’s time.  It then moves into a minimalist textured mid-section, before moving back into counterpoint and ending with stretto entries." - Diana Blom 

_Score 12 pp. Parts 4x4 pp._