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Cypriano de Rore or Cipriano de Rore was born between 1515 and 1516, and he died anywhere from September 11 to September 20, 1565.^[1] He was a Flemish composer.^[2] He was a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish composers after Josquin des Prez who went to live and work in Italy.^[3] He was also one of the most prominent mid-century composers of madrigal music.^[4]

De Rore's birthplace can now be established as Ronse (Renaix), a small town in Flanders, west of Brussels and at the linguistic border between Flemish and French-speaking areas (Cambier).^[5] Little is known about his early musical training.^[6] Some research has suggested a connection with Margaret of Parma, who went to Naples in 1533 to marry into the Medici family.^[7] It has been suggested that Rore may have accompanied her until her marriage to Alessandro de' Medici in 1536, therefore receiving some education in Italy.^[8] On the contrary, he may have received his early musical education at Antwerp.^[9] It has long been claimed that he undoubtedly studied in Venice with Adrian Willaert and other musicians.^[10] Furthermore, when Rore was a youth, he sang in the church choir at St. Mark's in Venice.^[11] A letter written November 3, 1542 indicates he was at Brescia, where he was known to have remained until April 16, 1545. ^[12] During this period, he began to acquire fame as a composer.^[13] He published a book of madrigals with the help of Scotto in Venice in 1542, along with two books of motets between 1544 and 1545.^[14] These works were highly regarded considering both Scotto and Gardane reprinted the madrigals two years later.^[15]

In 1547, he entered in the service of Duke Ercole II d'Este in Ferrara as choir master, or maestro di cappella.^[16] When Ercole died on October 3, 1559, Rore immediately offered his services to his successor Alfonso.^[17] However, the new duke refused his proposal, and Rore was forced to look for employment elsewhere.^[18]

Rore accepted an invitation to work for Margaret of Parma, governor in Brussels, and for her husband Ottavio Farnese, duke of Parma.^[19] After two years there, he was appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark's in Venice.^[20] However, he resigned on September 1, 1564 due to difficult conditions within the capella and returned to Parma, where he died a little over a year later. ^[21]

While Rore is best known for his Italian madrigals, he was also a prolific composer of sacred music, both masses and motets.^[22] Josquin was his point of departure, and he developed many of his techniques from the older composer's style.^[23] Rore's first three masses are a response to the challenge of his heritage and to the music of his predecessor, Josquin.^[24] In addition to five masses, he wrote several motets, many psalms, secular motets, and a setting of the St. John Passion.^[25]

It was as a composer of madrigals, however, that Rore achieved enduring fame.^[26] He was one of the most influential madrigalist in the middle of the 16th century.^[27] His madrigals were primarily published between 1542 and 1565.^[28] His early madrigals reflect the styles of Willaert with the use of clear diction, thick and continuous counterpoint, intensive imitation, and overlying cadences.^[29] They are mostly for four or five voices, with one for six and another for eight.^[30] The tone of his writing tends toward the serious, especially as contrasted with the light character of the work of the early madrigalists.^[31] Rore chose not to write madrigals of frivolous nature in order to focus on serious and noble texts, such as from Petrarch and tragedies presented at Ferrara.^[32] Rore also concentrated on delineating the varying mood of the text.^[33] Furthermore, he often ignored the structure of the line, line division, and rhyme, and did not deem it necessary that the musical and poetic lines correspond.^[34] Moreover, Rore executed all of his many different stylistic characteristics in order to express the meaning of words and furthermore of the poem as an entire unit.^[35]

In addition, Rore interestingly experimented with chromaticism.^[36] Rore, one of Vicentino's contemporaries, executed his theories regarding chromaticism.^[37] Moreover, he was appreciated for his sophisticated use of counterpoint.^[38] He also used canonical techniques and imitationin in his madrigals.^[39] Furthermore, he used all the resources of polyphony as they had developed in the early 16th century in the service of setting secular texts.^[40] Rore utilized a wide variety of techniques ranging from strict imitation to simple polyphony, from bland diatonic to distant harmonies, and from syllabic to florid melismatic declamation.^[41] He proved to be the model whom many of the great madrigalists of the late sixteenth century followed, including Claudio Monteverdi.^[42] According to Alfred Einstein in The Italian Madrigal (1949): Rore's true spiritual successor was Monteverdi.^[43] Einstein also said, "Rore holds the key to the whole development of the Italian madrigal after 1550." ^[44]

Rore also composed secular Latin motets, a relatively unusual "cross-over" form in the mid-16th century.^[45] These motets paralleled the sacred madrigal, or the madrigale spirituale.^[46] Stylistically these motets are similar to his madrigals.^[47]

• Cipriano de Rore free scores in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Cypriano de Rore free scores in the Werner Icking Music Archive

• Atlas, Allan W. Renaissance Music. New York, Norton, 1998. ISBN 0-393-97169-4
• Brown, Howard M. and Louise K. Stein. Music in the Renaissance, Second Ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1999.
• Einstein, Alfred. The Italian Madrigal. Princeton, N.J., 1949.
• Johnson, Alvin H. "Cipriano de Rore," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Owens, Jessie Ann. "Rore, Cipriano de." Grove Muisc Online. Ed. L. Macy. Accessed November 18, 2007.
• Reese, Gustave. Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4