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Giovanni Battista Guarini
Giovanni Battista Guarini (10 December 1538 – 7 October 1612) was an Italian poet, dramatist, and diplomat. Life Guarini was born in Ferrara. On the termination of his studies at the universities of Pisa, Padua and Ferrara, he was appointed professor of literature at Ferrara. Soon after his appointment, he published some sonnets which obtained for him great popularity as a poet. In 1567, he entered the service of Alfonso II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara. After about 20 years of service, differences with the Duke led him to resign. After residing successively in Savoy, Mantua, Florence and Urbino, he returned to his native Ferrara. There he discharged one final public mission, that of congratulating Pope Paul V on his election (1605). He died in Venice, where he had been summoned to attend a lawsuit, aged 73. He was the father of Anna Guarini, one of the famous ''virtuose'' singers of the Ferrara court, the three women of the ''concerto di donne''. She was murdered by her husband in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anna Guarini
Anna Guarini, Contessa Trotti (1563 – 3 May 1598) was an Italian virtuoso singer of the late Renaissance. She was one of the most renowned singers of the age, and was one of the four ''concerto di donne'' at the Ferrara court of the d' Este family, for whom many composers wrote in a progressive style. Life and murder She was the daughter of the famous poet Giovanni Battista Guarini, author of ''Il pastor fido''. Details of her early years are scanty, but it is known that she began her employment with the court of the d'Este family at the age of seventeen, and immediately attracted attention for the beauty and control of her singing voice. In addition to singing, she was a talented player of the lute. The Duchess of Ferrara, Margherita Gonzaga d'Este, apparently kept her and the other three members of the ''concerto di donne'' (Laura Peverara, Tarquinia Molza and Livia d'Arco) as frequent companions wherever she went; and the four musicians sang so beautifully together that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luca Marenzio
Luca Marenzio (also Marentio; October 18, 1553 or 1554 – August 22, 1599) was an Italian composer and singer of the late Renaissance. He was one of the most renowned composers of madrigals, and wrote some of the most famous examples of the form in its late stage of development, prior to its early Baroque transformation by Monteverdi. In all, Marenzio wrote around 500 madrigals, ranging from the lightest to the most serious styles, packed with word-painting, chromaticism, and other characteristics of the late madrigal style. Marenzio was influential as far away as England, where his earlier, lighter work appeared in 1588 in the ''Musica Transalpina'', the collection that initiated the madrigal craze in that country. Marenzio worked in the service of several aristocratic Italian families, including the Gonzaga, Este, and Medici, and spent most of his career in Rome. Early years According to biographer Leonardo Cozzando, writing in the late 17th century, Marenzio was born at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carlo Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa ( – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza. As a composer he is known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century. He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them ''in flagrante delicto''. Biography Early life Gesualdo's family had acquired the principality of Venosa in what is now the Province of Potenza, Southern Italy, in 1560. He was probably born on March 30, 1566, three years after his older brother Luigi, though some sources have stated that he was born on March 8. Older ones give the year of birth as 1560 or 1561, but this is no longer accepted. A letter from Gesualdo's mother, Geronima Borromeo, indicates that the year is most likely 1566. Gesualdo's uncle was Carlo Borromeo, later Saint Charles Borromeo. His mother was the niece of Pope Pius IV. Most likely Carlo was born at Venosa, then par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gioseppe Caimo
Gioseppe Caimo (also Giuseppe) (c. 1545 – between September 6, 1584 and October 31, 1584) was an Italian composer and organist of the Renaissance, mainly active in Milan. He was a prolific composer of madrigals and other secular vocal music, and was one of the most prominent musicians in Milan in the 1570s and early 1580s. Life He was born in Milan. No biographical details about his early life are known, but he was evidently a precocious composer, for his first publication was a book of four voice madrigals in 1564, written when he was probably in his late teens, and one of his compositions was probably performed for Emperor Maximilian when he was in Milan in 1563. This piece, ''Alli figliuoli del Sereniss. Re Massimigliano d'Austria Eccelsa e generosa prole degna'', No. 5 in his 1564 publication, is taken by Alfred Einstein as evidence he was already renowned in his home city at this young age. Einstein called it "a fine, sonorous music to be played in the open." Ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrea Gabrieli
Andrea Gabrieli (1532/1533Bryant, Grove online – August 30, 1585) was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as well as in Germany. Life Details on Gabrieli's early life are uncertain. He was probably a native of Venice, most likely the parish of S. Geremia. He may have been a pupil of Adrian Willaert at St. Mark's in Venice at an early age. There is some evidence that he spent time in Verona in the early 1550s, due to a connection with Vincenzo Ruffo, who worked there as ''maestro di cappella'' – Ruffo published one of Gabrieli's madrigals in 1554, and Gabrieli also wrote some music for a Veronese academy. Gabrieli is known to have been organist in Cannaregio between 1555 and 1557, at which time he competed unsuccessfully for the post of org ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Word-painting
Word painting, also known as tone painting or text painting, is the musical technique of composing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song's lyrics or story elements in programmatic music. Historical development Tone painting of words goes at least as far back as Gregorian chant. Musical patterns expressed both emotive ideas and theological meanings in these chants. For instance, the pattern ''fa-mi-sol-la'' signifies the humiliation and death of Christ and his resurrection into glory. ''Fa-mi'' signifies deprecation, while ''sol'' is the note of the resurrection, and ''la'' is above the resurrection, His heavenly glory ("''surrexit Jesus''"). Such musical words are placed on words from the Biblical Latin text; for instance when ''fa-mi-sol-la'' is placed on "''et libera''" (e.g., introit for Sexagesima Sunday) in the Christian faith it signifies that Christ liberates us from sin through his death and resurrection. Word painting developed especially in the late 16th cen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philippe De Monte
Philippe de Monte (1521 – 4 July 1603), sometimes known as Philippus de Monte, was a Flemish composer of the late Renaissance active all over Europe. He was a member of the 3rd generation madrigalists and wrote more madrigals than any other composer of the time. Sources cite him as being "the best composer in the entire country, particularly in the new manner and musica reservata." Others compare his collections of music with that of other influential composers, such as Lassus. Life Philippe de Monte was born in Mechelen. After boyhood musical training at St. Rumbolds Cathedral in Mechelen, where he was a choirboy, Monte went to Italy — a common destination for a young Flemish composer in the sixteenth century – where he made a name for himself as a composer, singer, and teacher. He lived and worked in Naples for a while, and in Rome, in the employ of Cardinal Orsini, although he was in England for a brief period, 1554–1555, during the reign of Queen Mary I, while she w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), Siege of Jerusalem of 1099. Tasso had mental illness and died a few days before he was to be Poet laureate, crowned on the Capitoline Hill as the king of poets by Clement VIII, Pope Clement VIII. His work was widely translated and adapted, and until the beginning of the 20th century, he remained one of the most widely read poets in Europe. Biography Early life Born in Sorrento, Torquato was the son of Bernardo Tasso, a nobleman of Bergamo and an epic and lyric poet of considerable fame in his day, and his wife Porzia de Rossi, a noblewoman born in Naples of Tuscany, Tuscan origins. His father had for many years been secretary in the service of F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including the Iberian Peninsula it continued, together with new styles, until the first decade of the 19th century. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (in the past often referred to as "late Baroque") and Neoclassical styles. It was encouraged by the Catholic Church as a means to counter the simplicity and austerity of Protestant architecture, art, and music, though Lutheran Baroque art developed in parts of Europe as well. The Baroque style used contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep colour, grandeur, and surprise to achieve a sense of awe. The style began at the start of the 17th century in Rome, then spread rapidly to France, northern Italy, Spain, and Portugal, then to Austria, southern Germany, and Russia. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madrigal
A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number of voices varies from two to eight, but usually features three to six voices, whilst the metre of the madrigal varies between two or three tercets, followed by one or two couplets. Unlike the verse-repeating strophic forms sung to the same music, most madrigals are through-composed, featuring different music for each stanza of lyrics, whereby the composer expresses the emotions contained in each line and in single words of the poem being sung. As written by Italianized Franco–Flemish composers in the 1520s, the madrigal partly originated from the three-to-four voice frottola (1470–1530); partly from composers' renewed interest in poetry written in vernacular Italian; partly from the stylistic influence of the French chanson; and from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalina Micaela Of Spain
Catherine Michaela of Spain (; 10 October 1567 – 6 November 1597) was Duchess of Savoy by marriage to Duke Charles Emmanuel I. She ruled the Duchy several times as regent in Charles Emmanuel's absence, notably during his campaign in 1594.Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani – Volume 22 (1979) She was the younger surviving daughter of Philip II of Spain and Elisabeth of Valois. Early life Catherine Michaela was the daughter of Philip II, ruler of the vast Spanish Empire, and his third wife, the French princess Elisabeth of Valois. She was described as beautiful, intelligent, arrogant and well aware of her high social status. Though her father did not attend her christening and was not as rejoiced at the birth of a daughter as he had been with her elder sister, Isabella Clara Eugenia, she had a good relationship with him. Philip and Catherine Michaela exchanged letters throughout her life. She had a close relationship with her sister. They were raised together under the car ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
