Ippolito Baccusi (also Baccusii, Hippolyti) (c. 1550 – 2 September 1609) was an Italian composer 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 ...

, active in northern Italy, including

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 ...

Mantua Mantua ( ; it, Mantova ; Lombard and la, Mantua) is a city and '' comune'' in Lombardy, Italy, and capital of the province of the same name. In 2016, Mantua was designated as the Italian Capital of Culture. In 2017, it was named as the Eur ...

, and

Verona Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Northern Italy, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and the ...

. A member of the Venetian School of composers, he had a strong reputation as a master of

counterpoint 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 ...

, and wrote both sacred and secular vocal music.Patricia Ann Myers, "Baccusi, Ippolito". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online

(accessed 4 January 2012). Little is known of his life other than the details of a few appointments, and what can be inferred from the dedications he wrote for his publications. He was born in Mantua. Sometime in the late 1560s he was appointed assistant director of the choir at San Marco di Venezia, San Marco in Venice, but he did not hold the position for long, going to Ravenna to study. In 1572 he was ''maestro di cappella'' at the church of Sant'Eufemia in Verona, where he may have been associated with the Veronese Accademia Filarmonica. On 14 November 1574 he was appointed maestro di cappella of the monastery of Santo Stefano in Venice, a position he resigned before 23 July 1575. By 1583 he held the ''maestro di cappella'' position at

Mantua Cathedral Mantua Cathedral ( it, Cattedrale di San Pietro apostolo; Duomo di Mantova) in Mantua, Lombardy, northern Italy, is a Roman Catholic cathedral dedicated to Saint Peter. It is the seat of the Bishop of Mantua. History An initial structure probabl ...

, where among other things he taught counterpoint to

Lodovico Zacconi Lodovico (or Ludovico) Zacconi (11 June 1555 – 23 March 1627) was an Italian composer and musical theorist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He worked as a singer, theologian, and writer on music in northern Italy and Austria; f ...

, who mentioned him glowingly in his ''Prattica de musica seconda parte'' of 1622, particularly for his contrapuntal skill.Fenlon, 25, 87 In 1592 Baccusi accepted the position of ''maestro di cappella'' at Verona Cathedral, where he remained for the rest of his life. Baccusi's music is in the

Venetian style Venetian Gothic is the particular form of Italian Gothic architecture typical of Venice, originating in local building requirements, with some influence from Byzantine architecture, and some from Islamic architecture, reflecting Venice's tradin ...

, influenced by

Adrian Willaert Adrian Willaert ( – 7 December 1562) was a Flemish composer of High Renaissance music. Mainly active in Italy, he was the founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers ...

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 ...

Cipriano de Rore Cipriano de Rore (occasionally Cypriano) (1515 or 1516 – between 11 and 20 September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish compose ...

and

Andrea Gabrieli Andrea Gabrieli (1532/1533Bryant, Grove online – August 30, 1585) was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the V ...

. He was a prolific composer, but to date no significant study has been undertaken of his music. His works, mostly published in Venice, include six books of masses, six books of motets and psalm settings, and seven books of madrigals, including a complete setting as a madrigal cycle of

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credited ...

's 11-stanza ''Vergine''. He also composed five- and six-voice settings of poems celebrating the Venetian victory over the Turks at Lepanto (1571). In the introductions to his 1596 and 1597 publications of masses and motets he mentioned the practice of instrumental doubling of vocal parts, something associated with the Venetian School; this is one of the first explicit references to a practice which had been going on for some time.

Notes

References

* Alfred Einstein, ''The Italian Madrigal.'' Three volumes. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1949. *

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. * Iain Fenlon, ''Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua''. Cambridge University Press, Oct 30, 2008. {{DEFAULTSORT:Baccusi, Ippolito Italian classical composers Renaissance composers 1550s births 1609 deaths 16th-century Italian composers Madrigal composers Italian male classical composers 16th-century classical composers