Giovanni Legrenzi - Unpublished Works

Unpublished Works

A number of works survive in manuscript copies only. Most can be ascribed confidently to Legrenzi, though there are a few of less certain attribution. Among the most important of these works are:

• The Messa a cinque voci con stromenti, found at Oxford.
• The unaccompanied Missa quinque vocibus found at Loreto. This Mass, dated 1689 and surviving in a magnificently bound volume, may have been presented as a votive offering.
• The Messa a 16 for four choirs and organ continuo held in the Vatican Library.
• The Prosa pro mortuis, a complete setting for double choir and instruments of the sequence "Dies irae" from the Requiem Mass.
• A unique setting for double choir and instruments of Matins for Christmas Day, including the Invitatory, Psalms and Te Deum; and concluding with the Introit for the First Mass of Christmas.
• Intret in conspectu, a motet for 6 voices, known from a single source copied out by Handel, who drew on Legrenzi’s motet in the chorus 'To thy dark servant' in the oratorio Samson.
• Credidi propter quod locutus sum, a psalm setting for solo alto, strings and continuo, which appears likely to be a unique example of Legrenzi's own hand, as there is evidence that it is an autograph.
• Laudate pueri, a psalm setting for five voices, strings and continuo and, unusually, a trumpet.
• Spirate aure serenae, a motet for solo soprano, strings and continuo which provides for a theorbo to double or replace the violone.

There are in addition a few more liturgical pieces, a number of cantatas and the unusual 'serenata' Notte, madri d’horrori.