Annibale Padovano (1527 – March 15, 1575) was an Italian composer and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational h ...

of the late

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

Venetian School. He was one of the earliest developers of the keyboard

toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtu ...

Life

Padovano was born in Padua — hence his name — but little is known about his early life. He first appears at St. Mark's in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

on November 30, 1552, when he was hired as first organist at an annual salary of 40 ducats. He stayed at this post until 1565. St. Mark's at this time also began to employ a second organist (it was

Claudio Merulo Claudio Merulo (; 8 April 1533 – 4 May 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He wa ...

for the last eight years of Padovano's tenure), which allowed two simultaneous, spatially separated organs to perform in the huge space of the cathedral: this was a key development in music of the Venetian school, which was already using spatially separated choirs of voices. Merulo took over the job of first organist when Padovano left. In 1566, Padovano left Venice to go to the Habsburg court in Graz. Many Venetian musicians left their native area to seek their fortunes in Habsburg domains, which generally remained friendly to Venice. Padovano became the director of music at Graz in 1570, and died there five years later.

Music and influence

Although Padovano published a book of motets, a book of

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

es, and two books of

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...

s, he is mainly remembered for his instrumental music. He was a notable early composer of

ricercar A ricercar ( , ) or ricercare ( , ) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term ''ricercar'' derives from the Italian verb which means 'to search out; to seek'; many ricercars serve a preludial funct ...

s, a predecessor of the fugue; many of the themes he used derived from

plainchant Plainsong or plainchant (calque from the French ''plain-chant''; la, cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Western Church. When referring to the term plainsong, it is those sacred pieces that are composed in Latin text ...

, but he included considerable ornamentation in the melodic lines. In addition he often broke the theme up for motivic development in a surprisingly "modern" way, anticipating the developmental techniques of the

common practice period In European art music, the common-practice period is the era of the tonal system. Most of its features persisted from the mid-Baroque period through the Classical and Romantic periods, roughly from 1650 to 1900. There was much stylistic evoluti ...

. Probably his most famous compositions are his

s, which were perhaps the earliest examples of the toccata in its more modern sense as an improvisatory, highly ornamented piece. Usually he included imitative interpolations between improvisatory sections, and also

meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pref ...

changes from duple to triple, anticipating later music of the Venetian school. While in Bavaria he wrote an enormous mass for 24 voices, which makes use of three choirs of eight voices each. This composition was likely performed for the wedding of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria to Renata of Lorraine. This piece has been recorded by the

Huelgas Ensemble The Huelgas Ensemble is a Belgian early music group formed by the Flemish conductor Paul Van Nevel in 1971. The group's performance and extensive discography focuses on Renaissance polyphony. The name of the ensemble refers to a manuscript of pol ...

, led by

Paul Van Nevel Paul Van Nevel (born 4 February 1946) is a Belgian conductor, musicologist and art historian. In 1971 he founded the Huelgas Ensemble, a choir dedicated to polyphony from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Van Nevel is known for hunting out li ...

References and further reading

Eleanor Selfridge-Field Eleanor () is a feminine given name, originally from an Old French adaptation of the Old Provençal name ''Aliénor''. It is the name of a number of women of royalty and nobility in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. The name was introd ...

, ''Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi.'' New York, Dover Publications, 1994. * "Annibale Padovano", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...

, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Padovano, Annibale 1527 births 1575 deaths 16th-century Italian musicians Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers Italian classical organists Male classical organists Musicians from Padua Renaissance composers Venetian School (music) composers