Gioseffo Zarlino (31 January or 22 March 1517 – 4 February 1590) was an Italian

music theorist Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the "rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (ke ...

and

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

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 ...

. He made a large contribution to the theory 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 ...

as well as to

musical tuning In music, there are two common meanings for tuning: * Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice. * Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases. Tuning practice Tun ...

Life and career

Zarlino 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 ...

, near

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 ...

. His early education was with the

Franciscan The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...

s, and he later joined the order himself. In 1536 he was a singer at

Chioggia Cathedral Chioggia Cathedral ( it, Duomo di Chioggia, ''Cattedrale di Santa Maria Assunta'') is the main place of worship in Chioggia, Italy, in the south of the Venetian Lagoon. It dates from 1627. The interior contains many interesting works of art. Hist ...

, and by 1539 he not only became a deacon, but also principal organist. In 1540 he was ordained, and in 1541 went to Venice to study with the famous contrapuntist and ''maestro di cappella'' of Saint Mark's,

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 ...

. In 1565, on the resignation of

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 composer ...

, Zarlino took over the post of ''maestro di cappella'' of St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical positions in Italy, and held it until his death. While ''maestro di cappella'' he taught some of the principal figures of the Venetian school of composers, including

Claudio Merulo Claudio Merulo (; 8 April 1533 – 4 May 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He w ...

Girolamo Diruta Girolamo Diruta (c. 1546 – 1624 or 1625) was an Italian organist, music theorist, and composer. He was famous as a teacher, for his treatise ''Il Transilvano'' (Venice, 1st part 1593; 2nd part 1609-10) on counterpoint, and for his part in t ...

, and

Giovanni Croce Giovanni Croce (; also Ioanne a Cruce Clodiensis, Zuanne Chiozotto; 1557 – 15 May 1609) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance, of the Venetian School. He was particularly prominent as a madrigalist, one of the few among the Venetian ...

, as well as

Vincenzo Galilei Vincenzo Galilei (born 3 April 1520, Santa Maria a Monte, Italy died 2 July 1591, Florence, Italy) was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist. His children included the astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and the lute virtuoso and ...

, the father of the astronomer, and the famous reactionary polemicist

Giovanni Artusi Giovanni Maria Artusi (c. 154018 August 1613) was an Italian music theory, theorist, composer, and writer. Artusi fiercely condemned the new musical innovations that defined the early Baroque music, Baroque style developing around 1600 in his tre ...

Works and influence

While he was a moderately prolific composer, and his

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

s are polished and display a mastery of canonic

, his principal claim to fame was his work as a theorist. While

Pietro Aaron Pietro Aron, also known as Pietro (or Piero) Aaron (c. 1480 – after 1545), was an Italian music theorist and composer. He was born in Florence and probably died in Bergamo (other sources state Florence or Venice). Biography Very little is know ...

may have been the first theorist to describe a version of

meantone Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, that is a tuning system, obtained by narrowing the fifths so that their ratio is slightly less than 3:2 (making them ''narrower'' than a perfect fifth), in order to push the thirds closer to pure. Mea ...

, Zarlino seems to have been the first to do so with exactitude, describing 2/7-comma meantone in his ''Le istitutioni harmoniche'' in 1558. Zarlino also described the 1/4-comma meantone and 1/3-comma meantone, considering all three temperaments to be usable. These are the precursors to the 50- 31- and 19-tone

equal temperament An equal temperament is a musical temperament or tuning system, which approximates just intervals by dividing an octave (or other interval) into equal steps. This means the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes is the same, wh ...

s, respectively. In his ''Dimostrationi harmoniche'' of 1571, he revised the numbering of modes to make the finales of the mode conform to the notes of the natural hexachord.Atcherson, Walter. “Key and Mode in Seventeenth- Century Music Theory Books.” Journal of Music Theory 17, no. 2 (1973): 210. Zarlino was the first to theorize the primacy of

triad Triad or triade may refer to: * a group of three Businesses and organisations * Triad (American fraternities), certain historic groupings of seminal college fraternities in North America * Triad (organized crime), a Chinese transnational orga ...

over interval as a means of structuring harmony. His exposition of

just intonation In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals Interval may refer to: Mathematics and physics * Interval (mathematics), a range of numbers ** Partially ordered set#Intervals, its generalization from numbers to ...

based on proportions within the "Senario" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and 8 is a departure from the previously established

Pythagorean Pythagorean, meaning of or pertaining to the ancient Ionian mathematician, philosopher, and music theorist Pythagoras, may refer to: Philosophy * Pythagoreanism, the esoteric and metaphysical beliefs purported to have been held by Pythagoras * Ne ...

diatonic system as passed on by

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the tr ...

. See:

Ptolemy's intense diatonic scale Ptolemy's intense diatonic scale, also known as the Ptolemaic sequence, justly tuned major scale, Ptolemy's tense diatonic scale, or the syntonous (or syntonic) diatonic scale, is a tuning for the diatonic scale proposed by Ptolemy, and correspo ...

. He was also one of the first theorists to offer an explanation for the prohibition of parallel fifths and octaves in counterpoint, and to study the effect and harmonic implications of the false relation. Zarlino's writings, primarily published by

Francesco Franceschi Francesco Franceschi (died c. 1599) was a printer in the Italian Renaissance. His roots were in Siena, though the bulk of his work was done in Venice. Franceschi was known for the high quality of his engravings, which were done using metal plat ...

, spread throughout Europe at the end of the 16th century. Translations and annotated versions were common in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, as well as 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 ...

among students of

Sweelinck Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck ( ; April or May, 1562 – 16 October 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard com ...

, thus influencing the next generation of musicians who represented 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 ...

style. Zarlino's compositions are more conservative in idiom than those of many of his contemporaries. His madrigals avoid the homophonic textures commonly used by other composers, remaining polyphonic throughout, in the manner of his motets. His works were published between 1549 and 1567, and include 41 motets, mostly for five and six voices, and 13 secular works, mostly madrigals, for four and five voices. His 10 motets on the Song of Songs used the text of

Isidoro Chiari Isidoro Chiari, or Isidoro Clario or Isidoro da Chiari, perhaps better known by his Latin name Isidorus Clarius and sometimes called Brixianus after the land of his birth, was a founding father of the Council of Trent and an editor of an edition ...

's translation of the

Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

Recordings

* Gioseffo Zarlino, ''Canticum Canticorum Salomonis''. Michael Noone, Ensemble Plus Ultra. GCD921406 * "Zarlino: Modulationes sex vocum", Singer Pur, OEHMS CLASSICS 873 (2013)

References

Sources

* Article "Gioseffo Zarlino", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. * * Gioseffo Zarlino, ''Istituzioni armoniche'', tr. Oliver Strunk, in Source Readings in Music History. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1950.

External links

Le istituzioni armoniche
(IMSLP) * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Zarlino, Gioseffo 1517 births 1590 deaths 16th-century Italian composers Italian male classical composers 16th-century classical composers 16th-century Venetian people Italian classical composers Italian music theorists Italian Franciscans Renaissance composers Venetian School (music) composers People from Chioggia Pupils of Adrian Willaert Josquin scholars