Dario Castello (Venice, bapt. 19 October 1602 - Venice 2 July 1631) was an Italian composer and violinist from the early

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 t ...

period who worked and published in

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

. As a composer, he was a late member of the Venetian School and had a role in the transformation of the instrumental

canzona The canzona is an Italian musical form derived from the Franco-Flemish and Parisian chansons, and during Giovanni Gabrieli's lifetime was frequently spelled canzona, though both earlier and later the singular was spelled either canzon or canzone ...

into the

sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

Biographical details

Dario Domenico Castello was born in Venice, where he was baptised on 19 October 1602. The title page of the 1621 edition of the first volume of the ''Sonate Concertate in stil moderno'' records him as ''Capo di Compagnia de Musichi d'Instrumenti da fiato in Venetia,'' indicating that he led a Venetian company of '' piffari'', a band that could include

sackbuts The term sackbut refers to the early forms of the trombone commonly used during the Renaissance music, Renaissance and Baroque music, Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of th ...

, cornetts,

shawms The shawm () is a conical bore, double-reed woodwind instrument made in Europe from the 12th century to the present day. It achieved its peak of popularity during the medieval and Renaissance periods, after which it was gradually eclipsed by the ...

, but also

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

s and

viols The viol (), viola da gamba (), or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch ...

.
On 19 November 1624 he was appointed «sonador di violin» (violin player) of the St. Mark's music chapel, at the time headed by

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 ...

. The title page of the second volume (1629) of the "Sonate concertate in Stil moderno" lists him as ''Musico Della Serenissima Signoria di Venetia in S. Marco, & Capo di Compagnia de Instrumenti,'' indicating that he worked at the great Basilica of St. Mark's where

was ''maestro di capella''. Castello's use of the ''stile concitato'' (agitated style) —with quick repeated-note figures— is consistent with his association with Monteverdi. His brother Francesco (trombonist) and his father Giovanni Battista (violinist) also were working at St Mark's. Dario Castello died in Venice on 2 July 1631 during the great plague of 1630.Baroncini, "Dario Castello", p. 88.

Style

Of his music, 29 separate compositions survive. Castello's music is inventive and technically challenging. Strictly worked polyphonic sections alternate with dramatic

recitative Recitative (, also known by its Italian name "''recitativo''" ()) is a style of delivery (much used in operas, oratorios, and cantatas) in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms and delivery of ordinary speech. Recitative does not repea ...

s over

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

, in keeping with the title of the publications "in stil moderno"; however he also uses some of the older

technique, which uses short sections of highly contrasting texture, and active rather than lyrical melodic lines. Unusually for the time, Castello often specifies the instruments for each part, calling for

cornett The cornett, cornetto, or zink is an early wind instrument that dates from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, popular from 1500 to 1650. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused wi ...

sackbut The term sackbut refers to the early forms of the trombone commonly used during the Renaissance music, Renaissance and Baroque music, Baroque eras. A sackbut has the characteristic telescopic slide of a trombone, used to vary the length of th ...

s and

dulcian The dulcian is a Renaissance woodwind instrument, with a double reed and a folded conical bore. Equivalent terms include en, curtal, german: Dulzian, french: douçaine, nl, dulciaan, it, dulciana, es, bajón, and pt, baixão. The predecess ...

s. That these works were still being reprinted in the 1650s attests to Castello's influence. Modern editions of the complete sonatas are published by Ut Orpheus Edizione.

Works

*''Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro I'', Venice, 1621 *''Sonate Concertate in Stil Moderno, Libro II'', Venice, 1629 *''Exultate Deo'', motet (

Ghirlanda sacra ''Ghirlanda sacra scielta da diversi eccellentissimi compositori de varii motetti à voce sola'' (Venice, 1625) is a compilation of 44 single-voice motets in the new style assembled by Leonardo Simonetti. Simonetti was a chorister in the Cappella Ma ...

1625 and 1636).

References

Recordings

*''The Floating City'', His Majesty's Sagbutts and Cornetts
Hyperion CDA67013
*''Viaggio Musicale'', Il Giardino Armonico, Teldec 8573825362. *''Dario Castello Sonate'', Ensemble La Capriola, Mieroprint EM 6005. *''Dario Castello: Sonata Quarta a2'', Reversio, (6-2 studio/REVERSIO. Catalog number: 6-2STD-CD013) *''Falla con misuras - 15th-17th Century Italian Chamber Music'', Reversio,(6-2 studio/REVERSIO. Catalog number: 6-2STD-CD008) *''Sonata Concertate - Book I'' The Academy of Ancient Music dir

Richard Egarr Richard Egarr (born 7 August 1963) is a British conductor and keyboard player. Biography Born in Lincoln, Egarr received his early musical training as a choirboy at York Minster and at Chetham's School of Music. He was an organ scholar at Clare ...

, Catalog number: AAM005 *''Sonata Concertate'', Europa Galante dir

Fabio Biondi Fabio Biondi (born 15 March 1961) is an Italian violinist and conductor. He is a specialist in Baroque and early music. Biography Born in Palermo, Sicily, Biondi had a late start, having never even held a violin till age 11, but by the follo ...

(Label Opus 111, 1992)) *''Sonate concertate in stil moderno'', Ensemble

Musica Fiorita Musica Fiorita was an ensemble for baroque music founded in 1990 and based in Basel, which was conducted by the harpsichordist Daniela Dolci. The ensemble concentrated in particular on rediscovering unknown works by composers of the 17th and 18th ...

, Daniela Dolci (Label Tactus, 2006) *''Sonate concertate in stil moderno'', John Holloway, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Jane Gower (Label ECM, 2010)

External links