Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (c. 1554 – 4 January 1609) was an Italian
composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
of the late
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 ...
and 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 ...
periods. He is known for his 1591 publication of ''balletti'' for five voices.
Career
Gastoldi was born at
Caravaggio,
Lombardy
Lombardy ( it, Lombardia, Lombard language, Lombard: ''Lombardia'' or ''Lumbardia' '') is an administrative regions of Italy, region of Italy that covers ; it is located in the northern-central part of the country and has a population of about 10 ...
. In 1592 he succeeded
Giaches de Wert
Giaches de Wert (also Jacques/Jaches de Wert, Giaches de Vuert; 1535 – 6 May 1596) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active in Italy. Intimately connected with the progressive musical center of Ferrara, he was one of the lea ...
as choirmaster at
Santa Barbara's, Mantua, and served until 1605 under the Dukes
Guglielmo and
Vincenzo Gonzaga
Vincenzo Ι Gonzaga (21 September 1562 – 9 February 1612) was ruler of the Duchy of Mantua and the Duchy of Montferrat from 1587 to 1612.
Biography
Vincenzo was the only son of Guglielmo Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua, and Archduchess Eleanor of Au ...
. According to Filippo Lomazzo, Gastoldi became choirmaster at the Duomo,
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, afterwards, but other considerations seem to make this point doubtful.
Works
Gastoldi composed several books of
madrigals
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 ...
, a variety of sacred vocal music, and a few instrumental works. Particularly noteworthy among his secular vocal works is his ''Quarto libro de' madrigali a cinque voci'' (1602), which consists almost entirely of settings of texts from Battista Guarini's hugely popular "pastoral tragicomedy" ''Il pastor fido'' (The Faithful Shepherd). According to Gastoldi himself, at least one of the pieces from this collection was included in a Mantuan court performance of the play in November 1598, which was staged as part of the festivities accompanying a visit of the queen of Spain.
Balletti
His two sets of ''
balletti
Ballet () is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form o ...
,'' a strophic vocal dance, however, are the most prominent and influential. These were written for five voices, and contained passages of nonsense syllables (e.g. "fa la la") which seemed to personify a type of lover and love-making. As a whole, Gastoldi's ''balletti'' were a musical ''
commedia dell'arte'', and included the following compositions: ''Contento'' (The Lucky One), ''Premiato'' (The Winner), ''L'Inamorato'' (The Suitor), ''Piacere'' (Pleasure), ''La Bellezza'' (Beauty), ''Gloria d'Amore'' (Praise of Love), ''L'Acceso'' (The Ardent), ''Caccia d'Amore'' (Love-Chase), ''Il Martellato'' (The Disdained), ''Il Bell’humore'' (The Good Fellow), ''Amor Vittorioso'' (Love Victorious), and ''Speme Amorosa'' (Amorous Hope). His ''balleti'' music basically had a simple chordal texture, fast declamation and rhythmic accents at the expense of
contrapuntal
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...
display, as is to be expected from their close relationship to dance music.
Gastoldi's ''Balleti a Cinque Voci'' was 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 ...
in 1591, and immediately became a "best seller." Within a short time, the collection was reprinted ten times, not only by their original publisher but also in other countries as well. Composers like
Vecchi,
Banchieri,
Hassler, and
Morley Morley may refer to:
Places England
* Morley, Norfolk, a civil parish
* Morley, Derbyshire, a civil parish
* Morley, Cheshire, a village
* Morley, County Durham, a village
* Morley, West Yorkshire, a suburban town of Leeds and civil parish
* M ...
were greatly captivated by this musical creation (compare Morley's ''ballett'' ''
Now is the Month of Maying'' for a clear example of Gastoldi's influence).
It is certain that many ''frottole'', ''
villancico
The ''villancico'' (Spanish, ) or vilancete ( Portuguese, ) was a common poetic and musical form of the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America popular from the late 15th to 18th centuries. Important composers of villancicos were Juan del Encina, Ped ...
s'', and ''chansons francaises'' were intimately related to dance, but it seems true that Gastoldi was the first scholarly author, presumably since the thirteenth century, to compose songs for dancing which were modeled on instrumental patterns, and were perfectly apt for instrumental performance alone.
The title page of the ''balletti'' bestows the title "Maestro di Cappella del Serenissimo Signor Duca di Mantova" to Gastoldi. However, this has no slightest intention of masking sophistication behind the spontaneous naivete of Gastoldi's works, because the entire content is a collection of simplicity, healthy playfulness, communicative carefreeness, and gaiety. The common trait is, of course, the Fa-la refrain, (which incidentally became "lirum-lirum "in ''Gloria d’amore'') with skipping rhythms, clear lines, and frank tonality. Gastoldi sought to vary his compositions from ''ballet'' to ''ballet'' by sometimes writing in triple time, in double or by the alternate use of major and minor. Otherwise, it cannot be said that he at all attempted a psychological differentiation between the several "characters" depicted.
Works in translation
Gastoldi's Italian works were enormously popular in the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
in Dutch ''
contrafacta
In vocal music, contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music". The earliest known examples of this procedure (sometimes referred to as ''adaptation''), date back ...
.''
[The" Balletti" of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi and the Musical History of the Netherlands R Rasch - Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse …, 1974 "... The Italiaense Balletten: Textual adaptations In the 1657 edition of the Italiaense Balletten the Italian texts of the Gastoldi and Vecchi pieces are accompanied by (anonymous) Dutch translations. Only the first stanzas of the texts of all pieces are provided. ..."]
References
External links
*
*
The Italian Madrigal Resource CenterMaster List of Composers, "Gastoldi, Giovanni Giacomo"
Didactic two-part compositions of the Renaissance and the BaroqueAbout the duo anthology published in Milan, 1598, which contains several duos by Gastoldi
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gastoldi, Giovanni Giacomo
1550s births
1609 deaths
People from Caravaggio, Lombardy
Italian Baroque composers
Italian male classical composers
17th-century Italian composers
17th-century male musicians