Lodovico Agostini
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Lodovico Agostini (1534 – 20 September 1590) was an Italian composer, singer, priest, and scholar of 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 ...
. He was a close associate of the Ferrara Estense court, and one of the most skilled representatives of the progressive secular style which developed there at the end of the 16th century.


Life

He was born in Ferrara, and spent most of his life there. He was the illegitimate son of Agostino Agostini, a singer and
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
of Ferrara mostly active in the 1540s. Lodovico may have studied for a time in
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 ...
, based on the evidence of a madrigal published there, and he became a priest. By 1572, he was singing in the chapel of
Ferrara Cathedral Ferrara Cathedral ( it, Basilica Cattedrale di San Giorgio, ''Duomo di Ferrara'') is a Roman Catholic cathedral and minor basilica in Ferrara, Northern Italy. Dedicated to Saint George, the patron saint of the city, it is the seat of the Archb ...
, and by 1578 he was on the payroll of Duke Alfonso II d'Este, one of the most famous patrons of music of the late 16th century. Clearly Lodovico was a favorite of the Duke, and he remained in his service for the rest of his life. In the 1580s, he was a composition teacher to the Duke of
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 ...
, Guglielmo Gonzaga; Agostini dedicated a book of
madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...
s to him. Gonzaga went on to become a composer of madrigals himself, and in addition was a close associate of
Palestrina Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pre ...
. Agostini was on good terms with many members of the aristocracy, as well as the famous poets
Tasso TASSO (Two Arm Spectrometer SOlenoid) was a particle detector at the PETRA particle accelerator at the German national laboratory DESY. The TASSO collaboration is best known for having discovered the gluon, the mediator of the strong interaction an ...
and Guarini, and other musicians at the court, including
Luzzasco Luzzaschi Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c. 1545 – 10 September 1607) was an Italian composer, organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance. He was born and died in Ferrara, and despite evidence of travels to Rome it is assumed that Luzzaschi spent the majority o ...
, the most famous of the Ferrarese
madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...
ists. While retaining his association with the intensely secular Estense court, he also had a distinguished ecclesiastical career, eventually becoming a
Monsignore Monsignor (; it, monsignore ) is an honorific form of address or title for certain male clergy members, usually members of the Roman Catholic Church. Monsignor is the apocopic form of the Italian ''monsignore'', meaning "my lord". "Monsignor" ca ...
and an
apostolic protonotary In the Roman Catholic Church, protonotary apostolic (PA; Latin: ''protonotarius apostolicus'') is the title for a member of the highest non-episcopal college of prelates in the Roman Curia or, outside Rome, an honorary prelate on whom the pop ...
.


Music and influence

Ferrara, in the 1580s and 1590s, was one of the most musically advanced and sophisticated places in Europe. Under the patronage of Duke Alfonso II d'Este the court developed into a place of musical experimentation, with a group of virtuoso female singers (the '' concerto di donne'') available to an equally virtuoso group of composers, who included Luzzaschi, Agostini, and in the 1590s, Carlo Gesualdo. They all wrote music for the enjoyment of a small group of connoisseurs, including the Duke himself. In this rarefied atmosphere an
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
style of music flourished, and Agostini was one of the most musically daring of the group. In some ways the scene at Ferrara was reminiscent of the activity at Avignon in the late 14th century, which produced a musical style known as the ars subtilior; indeed the Ferrarese scene is reminiscent of certain 20th and 21st century movements. Agostini was fond of musical enigmas, puzzles, surprise and double-entendre, and his many musical collections display this. ''Enigmi musicali'' and ''L'echo, et enigmi musicali'' are canons to be solved by riddles, full of unusual chromatic progressions, instrumental interpolations, and other musical curiosities. Some of his books of madrigals are written in a virtuoso singing style obviously intended for the three current members of the ''concerto di donne'' (
Laura Peverara Laura Peverara or Peperara (c. 1550 – 4 January 1601) was an Italian virtuoso singer who was also a harpist and dancer; born and raised in Mantua. Her father, Vincenzo, was a merchant, an intellectual who tutored princes, leading to Laura be ...
,
Anna Guarini Anna Guarini, Contessa Trotti (1563 – 3 May 1598) was an Italian virtuoso singer of the late Renaissance. She was one of the most renowned singers of the age, and was one of the four '' concerto di donne'' at the Ferrara court of the d' Este ...
, and
Livia d'Arco Livia d'Arco (c. 1565–1611) was an Italian singer in the court of Alfonso II d'Este in Ferrara. Biography She was sent there with the household of Margherita Gonzaga d'Este at the time of Margherita's marriage to Alfonso in 1579, and was a you ...
). His third book of madrigals, for six voices (1582), appears to be the earliest collection of the actual repertory of this ensemble. Agostini was also a composer of accompanied solo song; since many of the performers at the court were instrumentalists in addition to singers (for example Livia d'Arco was a virtuoso player of the
viol 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 pitc ...
) he wrote for both lute and viol as accompaniment to solo singers. While no liturgical music by Agostini has survived (none may have been written), one of his last compositions is ''Le lagrime del peccatore'', a setting of poems by
Luigi Tansillo Luigi Tansillo (1510–1568) was an Italian poet of the Petrarchian school. Born in Venosa, he entered the service of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo in 1536 and in 1540 entered the Accademia degli Umidi, soon renamed Accademia Fiorentina. He was associ ...
, as a set of madrigali spirituali; it is similar in intent, if not in musical means, to the set '' Lagrime di San Pietro'' by
Orlando di Lasso Orlande de Lassus ( various other names; probably – 14 June 1594) was a composer of the late Renaissance. The chief representative of the mature polyphonic style in the Franco-Flemish school, Lassus stands with Giovanni Pierluigi da Pales ...
, also based on poems by Tansillo. Agostini died in 1590, and in 1598 Alfonso died and Ferrara was absorbed into the
Papal States The Papal States ( ; it, Stato Pontificio, ), officially the State of the Church ( it, Stato della Chiesa, ; la, Status Ecclesiasticus;), were a series of territories in the Italian Peninsula under the direct sovereign rule of the pope fro ...
, effectively ending the musical experimentation there.


References and further reading


External links


Dangerous Graces: Female musicians at the courts of Ferrara and Parma, 1565-1589
Contains biographies of Agostino and Luzzaschi, as well as extensive information on the members of the ''concerto di donne''. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Agostini, Lodovico 1534 births 1590 deaths Musicians from Ferrara Italian classical composers Italian male classical composers Renaissance composers Italian male singers 16th-century Italian musicians