Salve di Maestro Petro Cornet (Salve Regina)

Today is the Feast of the Assumption. "Salve Regina" is NOT an Assumption work, but it is the only Marian work I could get together in time. :-)

Peeter Cornet (ca. 1570-80 – 27 March 1633) was a Flemish composer and organist of the early Baroque period. Although few of his compositions survive, he is widely considered one of the best keyboard composers of the early 17th century.

Very little is known about Cornet's life. Much of the information comes from a letter by his widow. Cornet was born in the 1570,s in the Brussels, then the capital of the Southern Netherlands. The family included numerous musicians, among them a violinist, singers and organists. From 1603 to 1606 Cornet worked as organist at the Church of St. Nicholas in Brussels. Around 1606 he became court organist to Albert VII, Archduke of Austria and his wife Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, the governors of the Southern Netherlands who maintained their court in Brussels.

Cornet is listed as chapel organist in the surviving court account books from 1612–1618. Apparently Cornet was also active as an organ consultant and builder. In 1615 he provided advice concerning the organ of St. Rumbolds Cathedral (Sint-Romboutskathedraal) in Mechelen, and in 1624 he signed a contract to build a choir division for the same organ.

Cornet's surviving output is small and consists only of keyboard music: eight fantasias, two courantes (with variations), a toccata, a setting of Salve Regina, and one of Tantum Ergo. One of the fantasias, Fantasia del 5. tuono sopra ut re mi fa sol la, survives incomplete. The style varies from animated, bright music of the courantes, to elaborate polyphony in the fantasias and the mystical, religious feeling of the Salve Regina setting.

Please see FIRST COMMENT for some very brief notes about the "Salve Regina."

The score is attached below, as well as a painting of the Annunciation, and several photos of St. Nicholas Church in Brussels, where Cornet served as organist.