Paolo Quagliati
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Paolo Quagliati (c. 1555 – 16 November 1628) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque era and a member of the
Roman School In music history, the Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music, in Rome, during the 16th and 17th centuries, therefore spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. The term also refers to the music they produ ...
of composers. He was a transitional figure between 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 ...
style and the earliest Baroque and was one of the first to write solo
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 ...
in the conservative musical center of
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
.


Life

Quagliati was born in
Chioggia Chioggia (; vec, Cióxa , locally ; la, Clodia) is a coastal town and ''comune'' of the Metropolitan City of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Geography The town is situated on a small island at the southern entrance to the L ...
to an aristocratic family. Most of his life he spent in the service of various royal and aristocratic families. In 1594 he became a Roman citizen, and between 1605 and 1608 Quagliati was employed by Cardinal Odoardo Farnese. Most likely he was organist at Santa Maria Maggiore from around 1608 until his death. During that time he also served as organist for various formal occasions around the city, and eventually he became private
chamberlain Chamberlain may refer to: Profession *Chamberlain (office), the officer in charge of managing the household of a sovereign or other noble figure People *Chamberlain (surname) **Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), German-British philosop ...
to Pope Gregory XV. Towards the end of his life he was much respected, if not renowned, by his fellow composers, as can be judged from dedications of collections of music to him; however, some of this may have been less due to the quality of his music than to his direct papal connections and immense influence.


Works and style

Stylistically, Quagliati's music is clear, elegant, and he generally uses simple diatonic harmonies. Some of his books of madrigals are in two versions: one for singing by equal voice parts, in the old Renaissance style, and another in what he calls the "empty" style, for single voice with instrumental accompaniment. These were examples of the new Baroque style of
monody In music, monody refers to a solo vocal style distinguished by having a single melodic line and instrumental accompaniment. Although such music is found in various cultures throughout history, the term is specifically applied to Italian song of ...
, and he states as much in the preface to his 1608 publication: "I have decided to cater to both tastes." Quagliati was probably the first to publish solo madrigals in Rome, though monody in the form of solo madrigals had already existed for more than twenty years in northern Italy. He wrote both sacred and secular vocal music, as well as some instrumental music. In his instrumental music, he makes little or no distinction between the style assigned to pieces with certain labels, such as
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 or
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 ...
s; this was an occasional practice at the time, and quite an annoying one to musicologists attempting to categorize music during this transitional period. Conventionally, a canzona around 1600 was a sectional instrumental piece, while a "ricercar" was a rather severe
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 ...
study, one of the ancestors of the fugue; the work of a few composers such as Quagliati make it necessary to qualify these terms as of imprecise usage. In 1606 he composed ''Il carro di fedeltà d'amore'', which is considered the first secular 'azione scenica'«Una delle prime azioni (per dir così) rappresentate in musica che in Roma si siano sentite».These words were used by Pietro della Valle, the author of the verses. See also: Pietro della Valle, Della musica dell’età nostra che non è punto inferiore, anzi è migliore di quella dell’età passata (16 genn. 1640), in G. B. Doni, Trattati di musica, Gori, Firenze, 1763, in ANGELO SOLERTI, «L’origine del melodramma», Bocca, Torino, 1903, p. 155 in Rome. Of his surviving larger-scale works, one of the most interesting is ''La sfera armoniosa'', which includes no less than 25 separate sections, including vocal solos and duets, all with an accompanying
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 regu ...
part. Much is written in the
concertato Concertato is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a ''genre'' or a ''style'' of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody, usually in alternation, and almost always over a basso continuo. The term derives from ...
style imported from northern Italy, though it would have seemed tame to a Venetian composer. He wrote this large work for the wedding of the nephew of the pope to Isabella Gesualdo, daughter of the famously murderous composer Carlo Gesualdo.


References


Further reading

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Quagliati, Paolo 1550s births 1628 deaths Musicians from the Metropolitan City of Venice Renaissance composers Italian Baroque composers Italian male classical composers Roman school composers 17th-century Italian composers People from Chioggia 17th-century male musicians