Michelagnolo Galilei (sometimes spelled Michelangelo; 18 December 1575 – 3 January 1631) was an Italian composer and lutenist 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 ...

and early Baroque eras, active mainly in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

and

Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and, after 1791, as the Commonwealth of Poland, was a bi- confederal state, sometimes called a federation, of Poland and Lithuania ru ...

. He was the son of

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 (k ...

and lutenist

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 ...

, and the younger brother of the scientist

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He wa ...

Life

Galilei was born in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...

. He learned to play the lute at an early age, like his father. Most likely he was destined for a career in Florence, but when his father died in 1591, the sixteen-year-old lutenist was put in the charge of his older brother

, who was in

Padua Padua ( ; it, Padova ; vec, Pàdova) is a city and ''comune'' in Veneto, northern Italy. Padua is on the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice. It is the capital of the province of Padua. It is also the economic and communications hub of the ...

. Some other employment had to be found for Michelagnolo, so in 1593 he went to

, where foreign musicians were much in demand. Most likely he went there with the powerful Lithuanian Radziwiłł family. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had several sophisticated musical establishments at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th centuries, especially at

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

Luca Marenzio Luca Marenzio (also Marentio; October 18, 1553 or 1554 – August 22, 1599) was an Italian composer and singer of the late Renaissance. He was one of the most renowned composers of madrigals, and wrote some of the most famous examples of the fo ...

, one of Italy's most famous

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 ...

composers, went there for a time, as did lutenists

Diomedes Cato Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565 – d.1627 in Gdansk) was an Italian-born composer and lute player, who lived and worked entirely in Poland and Lithuania. He is known mainly for his instrumental music. He mixed the style of the late Renaissance with ...

and Valentin Bakfark. Lutenists were particularly in demand, and a considerable quantity of lute music was printed in Poland and Lithuania, in cities such as Kraków, Gdańsk,

Toruń )'' , image_skyline = , image_caption = , image_flag = POL Toruń flag.svg , image_shield = POL Toruń COA.svg , nickname = City of Angels, Gingerbread city, Copernicus Town , pushpin_map = Kuyavian-Pom ...

and

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

.Morawska, Grove Michelagnolo came back from Poland in 1599, in a second failed attempt to gain employment in Florence in the court of Grand Duke Ferdinando de' Medici, but returned in 1600 to his previous employer in Poland–Lithuania.Beier, ''Program Notes'' He stayed there until 1607, at which time he was hired by the

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

Hofkapelle of Duke Maximilian I. Munich had had one of the most progressive musical establishments in the region since the mid-16th century, having employed

Orlande de Lassus 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 Pale ...

; Galilei was another of many talented Italian musicians who went there to live and work. He remained in Munich for the rest of his life, fathering eight children, at least three of whom also became lutenists.Chauvel, Grove His relationship with his brother Galileo became especially difficult in his last years. Many of the letters between the two have been preserved; Michelagnolo ceaselessly implored his elder brother for money, and for help with his difficult children (Vincenzo, born in 1608, was particularly troublesome).

Music

Most of Galilei's music was for ten-course lute, and most was published in his first book, ''Il primo libro d'intavolatura di liuto'' (Munich, 1620), which used

tablature Tablature (or tabulature, or tab for short) is a form of musical notation indicating instrument fingering rather than musical pitches. Tablature is common for fretted stringed instruments such as the guitar, lute or vihuela, as well as many fr ...

notation. Some of his pieces appeared singly in other publications. His music consists of dances such as

galliard The ''galliard'' (; french: gaillarde; it, gagliarda) was a form of Renaissance dance and music popular all over Europe in the 16th century. It is mentioned in dance manuals from England, Portugal, France, Spain, Germany, and Italy. Dance f ...

, volta and

corrente The ''courante'', ''corrente'', ''coranto'' and ''corant'' are some of the names given to a family of triple metre dances from the late Renaissance and the Baroque era. In a Baroque dance suite an Italian or French courante is typically paired ...

, grouped loosely into suites, organized by musical mode. Each suite is preceded by a

toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virtu ...

, and the book closes with two paired

passamezzo The passamezzo (plural: ''passamezzi'' or ''passamezzos'') is an Italian folk dance of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Many pieces named "passamezzo" follow one of two chord progressions that came to be named after the dance, passamezzo antico ...

s and

saltarello The ''saltarello'' is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast tr ...

s. Stylistically they are written in the most modern manner of the time, with dissonances, ornaments, and functional tonal progressions indicative of the developing early Baroque style. His musical style was particularly influential in southern Germany, as shown by the demand for his music, even when he was still in the

Notes

References

*Claude Chauvel: "Michelagnolo Galilei", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed March 7, 2007
(subscription access)
*Katarzyna Morawska, "Poland", I, 1, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed March 10, 2007
(subscription access)
*Paul Beier
''Program Notes for "Michelagnolo Galilei: Sonate from Il primo libro d'Intavolatura di liuto (1620)"''
(biography and musical description) {{DEFAULTSORT:Galilei, Michelagnolo 1575 births 1631 deaths Michelagnolo Galilei Italian male classical composers Italian Baroque composers Italian lutenists Renaissance composers Musicians from Florence 17th-century Italian composers