• Startseite
• Literatur
• Noten
• Noten 4-stimmig
• Titelouze, Jean: Ave Maris Stella (2 settings)

Titelouze, Jean: Ave Maris Stella (2 settings)

for 4 instruments.

These settings of the classic plainsong hymn Ave maris stella come from the first of two collections of liturgical music for organ by Titelouze: Hymnes de l´Eglise pour toucher sur l´orgue, avec les fugues et recerches sur le plain-chant, published in Paris in 1623.
Jean Titelouze (c.1562-1t33) was born in St. Omer (now in France, but then part of the Spanish Netherlands). In 1588 he became organist at the cathedral in Rouen, a post he held until his death. There has been some discussion about the origins of his name: the most likely theory is that it is a corruption of “De Toulouse”.
Although he was the first French composer to publish. collections of organ works, his music is rather conservative for its time, especially if one compares it with contemporary Italian keyboard music or the works of Sweelinck. He is rigorously contrapuntal in his approach, writing always in three or four clearly-defined parts, without ever developing free idiomatic keyboard textures. However, this makes his music quite suitable for performance on four melody instruments.
This edition follows the original, which is in keyboard score rather than any kind of tablature, quite closely; it was only necessary to add the occasional cautionary accidental, as Titelouze is quite precise in his use of accidentals. Apart from the two Ave maris stella settings printed here, there are two more arrangements of the same hymn in Titelouze´s collection, one in three parts, and a rather long one in four.