Bartolomeo degli Organi (24 December 1474 – 12 December 1539) was an Italian composer, singer and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

. Living in

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 an ...

, he was closely associated with

Lorenzo de' Medici Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici (; 1 January 1449 – 8 April 1492) was an Italian statesman, banker, ''de facto'' ruler of the Florentine Republic and the most powerful and enthusiastic patron of Renaissance culture in Italy. Also known as Lorenzo ...

, and was music teacher both to the Florentine composer Francesco de Layolle and Guido Machiavelli, the son of the famous writer.

Life

He was born in Florence, and seems to have spent most of his life there. He was a singer in the cathedral of Santissima Annunziata from 1488, and was appointed as a singer in the baptistry chapel by Lorenzo de' Medici himself. In addition he worked as an organist at several locations in Florence, finally obtaining the position of organist at the cathedral in 1509, a position he retained for the rest of his life. Bartolomeo was well-connected with the artistic and cultural life in Florence. In addition to being part of the circle of Lorenzo de' Medici, his friends included the poet

Lorenzo Strozzi Lorenzo Strozzi (December 3, 1513 – December 14, 1571) was an Italian abbot and cardinal. He was the son of Filippo Strozzi, a member of the powerful Strozzi family of Florence, and Clarice de' Medici. Lorenzo Strozzi was born in Florence ...

, and he was the music teacher of the son of

Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli ( , , ; 3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527), occasionally rendered in English as Nicholas Machiavel ( , ; see below), was an Italian diplomat, author, philosopher and historian who lived during the Renaissance. ...

. He also may have been one of the teachers of

Francesco Corteccia Francesco Corteccia, ''Hinnarium'', Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana Francesco Corteccia (July 27, 1502 – June 7, 1571) was an Italian composer, organist, and teacher of the Renaissance. Not only was he one of the best known of the early compo ...

, the most prominent Florentine musician of the middle of the 16th century. Some of Bartolomeo's children and grandchildren also became well-known musicians in Florence, including his sons Antonio, Lorenzo, and Piero, and his grandson Baccio degli Organi, a Florentine music teacher in the 16th century.

Music and influence

Relatively little of Bartolomeo's music has survived. Only fifteen pieces are found in sources of the period: ten secular songs, a lauda, and four instrumental compositions. The songs are in the characteristic style of the popular music of the period, with simple rhythms, homophonic texture, clear phrasing, and they are in strophic form. Eight are

ballata The ''ballata'' (plural: ''ballate'') is an Italian poetic and musical form in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musicapenim AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the Frenc ...

s. In spite of his close association with Ss Annunziata, only a single sacred composition has survived, the lauda ''Sguardate il Salvatore'', and that is probably an adaptation of a secular song. Some influence of the Netherlands school is evident in his music: he used the tune of the famous

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...

''De tous biens plaine'' by

Hayne van Ghizeghem Hayne van Ghizeghem ( 1445 – 1476 to 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance Burgundian School. While many of his works have survived, little is known about his life. He was probably born in Gijzegem (near Aalst, in modern ...

in one of his instrumental pieces, and he also used motivic material by

Alexander Agricola Alexander Agricola (; born Alexander Ackerman; – 15 August 1506) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance writing in the Franco-Flemish style. A prominent member of the ''Grande chapelle'', the Habsburg musical establishment, he wa ...

(who also worked in Florence in the early 1490s, and was possibly his teacher) in his instrumental music.

References

* Frank A. D'Accone. "Bartolomeo degli Organi", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', ed. L. Macy (Retrieved 10 February 2006)
grovemusic.com
(subscription access). *

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. {{DEFAULTSORT:Organi, Bartolomeo Renaissance composers Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers Italian classical organists Male classical organists People from the Province of Florence 1474 births 1539 deaths