Jacobus Gallus

Jacobus Gallus was born as Jakob Petelin in 1550 in Ribnica, Slovenia. He is best known for his sacred music. A Cistercian monk, Gallus travelled in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, and went to Melk Abbey, Lower Austria. He was a member of the Viennese court chapel in 1574, and was choirmaster to the bishop of Olomouc, Moravia in 1579-1585.

He used the Latin form of his name, to which he often added the adjective Carniolus, thus giving credit to his home land, Carniola. His most notable work is the six part Opus musicum, 1577, a collection of motets that would eventually cover the liturgical needs of the entire ecclesiastical year. The motet O magnum mysterium comes from the first volume (printed in 1586) which covers the period from the first Sunday of Advent to the Septuagesima. This motet for 8 voices gives evidence of Venetian influence in its use of the coro spezzato technique (= polychorality).

His wide-ranging, eclectic style blended archaism and modernity. He rarely used cantus firmus, preferring the then-new Venetian polychoral manner, yet he was equally conversant with earlier imitative techniques. Some of his chromatic transitions foreshadowed the breakup of modality; his five-voice motet Mirabile mysterium contains chromaticism worthy of Don Carlo Gesualdo. He enjoyed word painting in the style of the madrigal, yet he could write the simple Ecce quomodo moritur justus later used by Georg Friedrich Händel in his funeral anthem The Ways of Zion Do Mourn. Jacobus Gallus died on 18 July 1591 in Prague.