Seventeenth-Century Italian Motets with Trombones

The specification of instruments in vocal-instrumental compositions began in the final decades of the sixteenth century in Italy and gained momentum in the early decades of the seventeenth, including in church music. Trombones, in particular, were increasingly specified and often used interchangeably with voices. The early Italian concerted motets of this edition were composed in the period 1600–1640, contain explicitly labelled parts for trombones, and are small scale—containing fewer than eight parts (excluding basso continuo). Unlike other editions of similar repertory, the works selected here provide a representative sample of a significant repertory and present music of high-quality by lesser-known composers whose output is largely unavailable.