Gioseffo Guami (c. 1542-1611) was an italian composer and a member of a long family of musicians that also included Francesco, Domenico, Vincenzo and Valerio. Gioseffo was the most illustrious member of the family.
A neglected work by Gioseffo Guami is the Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae, published in Venice in 1588 by Giacomo Vincenti. The only extant copy of this printed collection is now in the Biblioteca capitolare di Verona.
The Lamentationes contains nine Lamentations, three for Maundy Thursday (Feria quinta), three for Good Friday (Feria sexta) and three for Holy Saturday (Sabbato Sancto). All of them are scored for six voices (SSATBB), except the last one, that is set for eight voices (SSSAATBB). Each set of three Lamentations repeats the same music for the last verse (Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum). Again, only the ninth Lamentation is different, and uses a polychoral setting for this verse.
This nine gems could be defined as the halfway between the music for Holy Week composed by Victoria in 1585 and by Gesualdo in 1611. While it has some of the emotion and fervour of Victoria's music, these Lamentations are also full of some of the experimentation signatures that would be found more than twenty years later in Gesualdo's Responsoria, such as chromaticism, unexpected modulations, extremely low or high pitches... The Lamentationes Hieremiae Prophetae is a masterpiece that deserves to be studied, performed and recorded.
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Gioseffo Guami (c. 1542-1611)
Lamentationes
Hieremiae Prophetae, (Venice,
1588)
©2023 Jorge Martín
