Orlando Lassus

Orlando di Lasso (c. 1532 – June 14, 1594), also known as Roland de Lassus or Orlandus Lassus, was a Franco-Flemish composer who stands with Palestrina and Victoria as one of the great masters of late Renaissance polyphony. His output of more than two thousand pieces ranges across motets, masses, madrigals, chansons, and German lieder.

Born in Mons in the County of Hainaut, in present-day Belgium, he is said to have been kidnapped three times as a boy because of the beauty of his singing voice. He entered the service of Ferrante Gonzaga and traveled in his retinue to Sicily and Milan, then served the Marchese della Terza in Naples. By 1553 he was maestro di cappella at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the post Palestrina would inherit on his departure.

From 1556 he settled at the Bavarian court of Duke Albrecht V in Munich, first as a singer and from 1563 as Kapellmeister, where he remained for the rest of his life. The court chapel under his direction became the most celebrated north of the Alps, drawing visitors and pupils from across Catholic Europe.

His sacred works include the seven Penitential Psalms commissioned by Albrecht around 1560, the late Lagrime di San Pietro (1594) on poems of Tansillo, and more than five hundred motets collected after his death in the Magnum opus musicum. His secular output includes Italian madrigals, French chansons, and the satirical drinking songs of his German lieder. He was ennobled by Emperor Maximilian II in 1570 and died in Munich in 1594.

The name Orlando is the Italian form of Roland, from the Old Germanic Hrodland meaning famous land. He gave the name lasting weight in European music history.