Non Usitata
A transcription of a work by Ludwig Senfl,
arranged for two baritones, piano and string ensemble

The first polyphonic compositions to make use of texts by Virgil, Ovid and, in the beginning, mainly of the Odes of Horace, came into existence under the impulse of prominent humanists. The ode was to become the favorite form of composers who applied themselves to the musical setting of classical literature. The humanists were convinced that music was an essential element in poetic declamation, and the resulting compositions showed a meticulous respect for literary prosody. The first examples of ode compositions follow the techniques of the Alexandrian school in which quantitative scansion reigned supreme: the composers made use of only two note values (brevis and semibrevis) in order to maintain the ration of 2:1. This resulted in a freely measured, homorhythmic and syllabic setting of the texts in which the interpreter "express the musical values of the verbal rhythm according to the emotional effects of the soul and the body". The finest example can be heard in this four-voice Ode by L. Senfl.

Non usitata nec tenui ferar penna biformis per liquidum aethera   vates neque in terris morabor     longius invidiaque maior urbis relinquam. Non ego, pauperum sanguis parentum, non ego quem vocas,   dilecte Maecenas, obibo     nec Stygia cohibebor unda. Iam iam residunt cruribus asperae pelles et album mutor in alitem   superne nascunturque leves     per digitos umerosque plumae.

Iam Daedaleo notior Icaro visam gementis litora Bosphori   Syrtisque Gaetulas canorus     ales Hyperboreosque campos. Me Colchus et qui dissimulat metum Marsae cohortis Dacus et ultimi   noscent Geloni, me peritus     discet Hiber Rhodanusque potor. Absint inani funere neniae luctusque turpes et querimoniae;   compesce clamorem ac sepulcri     mitte supervacuos honores.

—From Horace Odes, II. 20.