The Lagrime di San Pietro, composed by Orlando di Lasso, is widely considered one of the greatest examples of Renaissance polyphony and is likely the most famous collection of sacred madrigals ever written. This cycle, which includes 20 madrigals and a concluding motet, describes the stages of grief experienced by St. Peter after his denial of Christ. It is structured in three sequences of seven compositions.
Lassus, also known as Orlandus Lassus, Roland de Lassus, or Roland de Lâtre, was a renowned composer born in Bergen, Belgium in 1532. He served as a choirboy at the church of St. Nicholas in Mons before being taken to Italy by the Viceroy of Sicily with his parents' permission. Lassus later became the chapel master of St. John of the Lateran in Rome and traveled throughout France and England. He was appointed a member of the Munich Court Chapel in 1556 and became its director four years later, a position he held until his death in 1594.
The Lagrime was Lassus' final composition, dedicated to Pope Clement VIII shortly before his death. The cycle is a synthesis of Lassus's style, incorporating techniques he learned early in his career composing secular madrigals, as well as the concise, refined language he developed late in his career, akin to the Palestrina style. The music is set to the text syllabically, with careful attention to diction, and includes pauses where a speaker would naturally pause for breath. The cycle is entirely through-composed, without repetition or redundancy, and the music's austerity and intensity of feeling perfectly match the clarity of the poetic imagery.
The final piece in the set is a Latin motet, Vide homo, quae pro te patior ("See, man, how I suffer for you"), in which the crucified Christ, speaking in the first person, confronts Peter's betrayal and the sinfulness of all humanity. The Lagrime marked the end of an era and a style; within a decade of its composition, new early baroque forms, such as the sacred concerto for few voices and basso continuo, had taken over.
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