Rore, Cipriano de
- Jessie Ann Owens
Extract
(b Ronse [Renaix], 1515/16; d Parma, 11–20 Sept 1565). South Netherlandish composer, active in Italy. De Rore was one of the most important composers of the middle decades of the 16th century. Although he lived to be only 49 years old, his music, particularly his Italian madrigals, underwent profound changes in style from his early to his late works. His innovations both in harmonic language and in texture created a dramatic style intensely expressive of the text and very important for later developments in the madrigal.
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). The name de Rore (and variant forms de Rodere, Roere) can be found in Ronse documents from as early as c1400. It is a proper Flemish name, not a Latinized version like De Monte for Van den Berghe. The family used a coat of arms with crossed scythes within an oval frame; the composer used this as his seal and it is found on his memorial plaque in Parma. Cyprianus, a saint who was celebrated at St Hermes, the collegiate church in Ronse, was the namesake of a number of members of the family. A ...
