|
Giovanni Gualberto Magli
Giovanni Gualberto Magli was an Italian castrato who had an active singing career during the first quarter of the 17th century. Born in Florence, he studied voice with Giulio Caccini before becoming a musician for the House of Medici on 23 August 1604. He participated in the world premiere of Claudio Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' in 1607 at the court of Prince Francesco IV Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, portraying the roles of La Musica and Proserpina and possibly one other part. The musicologist and historian Hans Redlich mistakenly allocates Magli to the role of Orfeo. In 1608 he sang for the wedding festivities of Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria. In October 1611 he was granted two years paid leave by Antonio de' Medici to pursue further studies in Naples. He left Medici service in 1615 to join the musicians at the court of John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg John Sigismund (german: Johann Sigismund; 8 November 1572 – 23 Decembe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castrato
A castrato (Italian, plural: ''castrati'') is a type of classical male singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. The voice is produced by castration of the singer before puberty, or it occurs in one who, due to an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity. Castration before puberty (or in its early stages) prevents the larynx from being transformed by the normal physiological events of puberty. As a result, the vocal range of prepubescence (shared by both sexes) is largely retained, and the voice develops into adulthood in a unique way. Prepubescent castration for this purpose diminished greatly in the late 18th century. Methods of castration used to terminate on the onset of puberty varied. Methods involved using opium to medically induce a coma, then submerging the boy into an ice or milk bath where the procedure of either severing the vas deferens (similar to a vasectomy), twisting the testicles until they atrophied, or comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singing
Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in an ensemble of musicians, such as a choir. Singers may perform as soloists or accompanied by anything from a single instrument (as in art song or some jazz styles) up to a symphony orchestra or big band. Different singing styles include art music such as opera and Chinese opera, Indian music, Japanese music, and religious music styles such as gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues, ghazal, and popular music styles such as pop, rock, and electronic dance music. Singing can be formal or informal, arranged, or improvised. It may be done as a form of religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual as part of music education or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico anno 2013, datISTAT/ref> Florence was a centre of medieval European trade and finance and one of the wealthiest cities of that era. It is considered by many academics to have been the birthplace of the Renaissance, becoming a major artistic, cultural, commercial, political, economic and financial center. During this time, Florence rose to a position of enormous influence in Italy, Europe, and beyond. Its turbulent political history includes periods of rule by the powerful Medici family and numerous religious and republican revolutions. From 1865 to 1871 the city served as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy (established in 1861). The Florentine dialect forms the base of Standard Italian and it became the language of culture throughout Ital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Giulio Caccini
Giulio Romolo Caccini (also Giulio Romano) (8 October 1551 – buried 10 December 1618) was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the most influential creators of the new Baroque style. He was also the father of the composer Francesca Caccini and the singer Settimia Caccini. Life Little is known about his early life, but he is thought to have been born in Rome, the son of the carpenter Michelangelo Caccini; he was the older brother of the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Caccini. In Rome he studied the lute, the viol and the harp, and began to acquire a reputation as a singer. In the 1560s, Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, was so impressed with his talent that he took the young Caccini to Florence for further study. By 1579, Caccini was singing at the Medici court. He was a tenor, and he was able to accompany himself on the viol or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
House Of Medici
The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of Tuscany, and prospered gradually until it was able to fund the Medici Bank. This bank was the largest in Europe during the 15th century and facilitated the Medicis' rise to political power in Florence, although they officially remained citizens rather than monarchs until the 16th century. The Medici produced four popes of the Catholic Church—Pope Leo X (1513–1521), Pope Clement VII (1523–1534), Pope Pius IV (1559–1565) and Pope Leo XI (1605)—and two queens of France— Catherine de' Medici (1547–1559) and Marie de' Medici (1600–1610). In 1532, the family acquired the hereditary title Duke of Florence. In 1569, the duchy was elevated to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany after territorial expansion. The Medici ruled ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history. Born in Cremona, where he undertook his first musical studies and compositions, Monteverdi developed his career first at the court of Mantua () and then until his death in the Republic of Venice where he was ''maestro di cappella'' at the basilica of San Marco. His surviving letters give insight into the life of a professional musician in Italy of the period, including problems of income, patronage and politics. Much of Monteverdi's output, including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine books of madrigals, large-scale religious works, such as his ''Vespro della Beata Vergine'' (''Vespers for the Blessed Virgin'') ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
L'Orfeo
''L'Orfeo'' ( SV 318) (), sometimes called ''La favola d'Orfeo'' , is a late Renaissance/early Baroque ''favola in musica'', or opera, by Claudio Monteverdi, with a libretto by Alessandro Striggio. It is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his fruitless attempt to bring his dead bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua. While Jacopo Peri's ''Dafne'' is generally recognised as the first work in the opera genre, and the earliest surviving opera is Peri's '' Euridice'', ''L'Orfeo'' is the earliest that is still regularly performed. By the early 17th century the traditional intermedio—a musical sequence between the acts of a straight play—was evolving into the form of a complete musical drama or "opera". Monteverdi's ''L'Orfeo'' moved this process out of its experimental era and provided the first fully developed example of the new genre. After i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francesco IV Gonzaga, Duke Of Mantua
Francesco IV Gonzaga (7 May 1586 – 22 December 1612), was Duke of Mantua and (as Francesco II) Duke of Montferrat between 9 February and 22 December 1612. Biography Born in Mantua, he was the eldest son of Duke Vincenzo I and Eleonora de' Medici. In 1607, Claudio Monteverdi dedicated his opera ''L'Orfeo'' to Francesco. The title page of the opera bears the dedication "Al serenissimo signor D. Francesco Gonzaga, Prencipe di Mantoua, & di Monferato, &c." Francesco became Duke upon his father's death on 9 February 1612. He died at Mantua on 22 December 1612 without male heirs. He was succeeded by his brother Ferdinand; however, Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, the father of Francesco's wife Margaret of Savoy, disputed this, leading to the War of the Montferrat Succession (1613–1617). Family On 19 February 1608 he married in Turin, Margaret of Savoy (1589–1655), daughter of Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy. They had: * Maria (29 July 1609 – 14 August 1660); married in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Redlich
Hans Ferdinand Redlich (11 February 1903 – 27 November 1968) was an Austrian musicologist, writer, conductor and composer who, due to political disruption by the Nazi Party, lived and worked in Britain from 1939 until his death nearly thirty years later. Redlich's continental years Redlich was born in Vienna, the son of Josef Redlich (1869-1936), then Professor of History at the University of Vienna. He studied piano privately with Paul Weingarten and harmony and counterpoint with Hugo Kauder. He was a student of Carl Orff in Munich after 1921. He was a university student in both cities and studied German literature and musicology. Redlich served as répétiteur for the Berlin-Charlottenburg city opera in 1924–1925 and as opera conductor for the Stadttheater Mainz from 1925 to 1929. From 1929 until 1931, Redlich studied musicology at Frankfurt University where he completed a dissertation on stylistic changes in Claudio Monteverdi's madrigals. From then until 1937, Redlich res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cosimo II De' Medici, Grand Duke Of Tuscany
Cosimo II de' Medici (12 May 1590 – 28 February 1621) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1609 until his death. He was the elder son of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Christina of Lorraine. For the majority of his twelve-year reign, he delegated the administration of Tuscany to his ministers. He is best remembered as the patron of Galileo Galilei, his childhood tutor. Biography Cosimo's father Ferdinando I took care to provide him with a modern education. Indeed, Galileo Galilei was Cosimo's tutor between 1605 and 1608. Ferdinando arranged for him to marry Archduchess Maria Maddalena of Austria, daughter of Archduke Charles II, in 1608. Their marriage was celebrated with an elaborate display on the Arno, which included a performance of the ''Argonautica'', in which Jason sailed around an artificial island and presented Maria Maddalena with six red apples, alluding to the Medici family symbolic balls, or palle. Cosimo and Maria Maddalena had eight children ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archduchess Maria Maddalena Of Austria
Maria Maddalena of Austria (Maria Magdalena; 7 October 1589 – 1 November 1631) was Grand Duchess of Tuscany from the accession of her husband, Cosimo II, in 1609 until his death in 1621. With him, she had eight children, including a duchess of Parma, a grand duke of Tuscany, and an archduchess of Further Austria. Born in Graz, she was the youngest daughter of Charles II, Archduke of Inner Austria, and his wife Maria Anna of Bavaria. During the minority of her son, Grand Duke Ferdinando, she and her mother-in-law acted as regents from 1621 to 1628. She died on 1 November 1631 in Passau. Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany In 1608, Maria Maddalena was married to Cosimo de' Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany. Cosimo's father, Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany, arranged the marriage in order to assuage Spain's (where Maria Maddalena's sister was the incumbent queen) animosity towards Tuscany, which had been inflamed due to a string of Franco-Tuscan marriages. Regency She and Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antonio De' Medici
Don Antonio de' Medici (29 August 1576 – 2 May 1621) was the only son of Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his mistress Bianca Cappello. He was a minor figure at the Grand Ducal Medici court. Early life Antonio was born under obscure conditions during the lifetime of Francesco I de' Medici's legitimate consort, who died in childbirth in April 1578. The grand duke secretly married his mistress Bianca Cappello only two months later, before celebrating a public wedding in 1579, after the official mourning period. The very existence of the infant was not publicly acknowledged until he was almost three years old, but from the moment he was brought into the court, he was raised as the legitimate heir to Tuscany. During his father's lifetime no doubts were raised either of his paternity, or of Francesco's intention that he should succeed him. Francesco legitimated Antonio and in 1584 he obtained implicit approval from Philip II of Spain, who was the overlord of Siena, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Singing")
.svg "Click for more on -> House Of Medici")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Claudio Monteverdi")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Cosimo II De' Medici, Grand Duke Of Tuscany")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Antonio De' Medici")