(b Orciano di Pesaro, nr Fano; d probably Verona or Venice, 1647 or later). Italian composer and organist. He had probably settled in Venice before 1634, by which time he was closely associated with Giulio Strozzi and Barbara Strozzi (also see below). There is no evidence of his relationship with them after 1636, though he may well have been one of the musicians who performed at the meetings of the Accademia degli Unisoni, which Giulio Strozzi founded in 1637. In January 1638/9 he was, according to the title-page of his 1638 book, organist ‘in aede Sancte Mariae Cruciferorum’ (presumably S Maria de’ Crocicchieri, Venice), and he may have entered the priesthood at about this time. In the dedication to his op.5 (1640) he mentioned that he and his music had been favourably received at Verona, but its wording does not support Gaspari’s conclusion that he was then living there. He certainly intended to continue his career as an organist in Venice, for on 22 January 1640 he competed against Giacomo Arrigoni, Cavalli and Monferrato for the post of second organist at S Marco. Although he was unsuccessful (the post was awarded to Cavalli) it is likely that he continued to live in Venice, where his only known opera was performed in 1642. In 1645, however, he did move to Verona, where on 13 May he succeeded Simone Zavaglioli as choirmaster of the cathedral and teacher of the acolytes. Apart from an absence between April and November 1646, he remained at Verona until 1647 and may have died there. Federico Mompellio’s suggestion (in MGG1) that he left in 1647 to enter the service of the Duke of Mantua seems to be based on the ambiguous wording of the dedication to his op.6: the desire he expressed there to be regarded as the duke’s servant appears to be a form of conventional politeness rather than an appeal for new employment.
Fontei wrote his first two books of Bizzarrie poetiche poste in musica for Barbara Strozzi; Giulio Strozzi provided all the texts for the first book and most of those for the second. The solo arias, many of them with a ritornello for one or two instruments, which make up the greater part of the first book are characterized by rather clumsy, short-breathed melodic phrases. Fontei’s melodic style matured rapidly, however, and by the time of his op.4 (1639) he was able to handle the sensuous lines of the Venetian triple-time bel canto aria with complete assurance, as can be seen, for example, in the aria over an ostinato bass (marked ‘as slowly as you can’) that forms the central section of the lament La bella Erinna su le sponde. His continuing mastery of the Venetian triple-time aria can also be seen in his sacred music. In the solo motet Peccavi, O bone Jesu (RISM 16453), for example, three stanzas set as strophic variations in an exquisite bel canto style are introduced by an arioso which includes a hint of the genere concitato in the setting of the phrase ‘quoniam irritavi iram tuam’. Although Fontei wrote secular music for only one, two or three voices, the scoring of his sacred music encompasses a wider range, from solo works – some, such as Laudate pueri in op.6, with obbligato and optional instruments – to the eight-part ceremonial Mass in D minor in the same collection, which includes parts for continuo, two violins and three further, optional instruments.
Fontei was a pioneer of rondo or refrain structures in secular vocal music. His settings of Hor tra l’aure and Beltà non ho (both in op.1) seem to be the earliest published examples of rondo cantatas. The first of these comprises an opening section in triple time followed by three stanzas set as a strophic-bass cantata; between the stanzas a refrain in two sections and a ritornello are performed. Each of the three stanzas of the duet Scorre amor (in op.4; ed. in Whenham), the first two set as solos and the third as a duet, is rounded off by a triple-time duet refrain marked ‘presto’. Fontei used rondo structure with more freedom in the pastoral dialogue of Lidio and Lilla, Lilla, se Amor non fugga (also in op.4), a complex work of considerable musical merit. Bearing in mind his connections with Giulio and Barbara Strozzi, it may be more than coincidence that its subject matter – the contrast between, and the interrelationship of, song and tears, love and misery – resembles that of the so-called Contesa del Canto e delle Lagrime, two papers read before the Accademia degli Unisoni and published in 1638. Although much of the text is set in alternate arioso and triple-time sections, focal points are provided by two strophic canzonettas, ‘Amor fra ’l canto è ascoso’ and ‘Amor fra ’l duol s’asconde’, sung by Lilla.
all except anthologies published in Venice
|
Melodiae sacrae, 2–5vv, op.3 (1638) |
|
Compieta e letanie della Beata Vergine, 5vv, con sue antifone, in ciascun tempo dell’anno, 3vv, e con alcuni duplicati salmi, 3vv, 2 vn, 2 Confiteor, armonizata, op.5 (1640) |
|
Messa, e salmi a diverse voci [1–8vv], et istromenti, op.6 (1647) |
|
Salmi brevi, 8vv, con il primo choro concertato, op.7 (1647) |
|
Laudate Dominum, ps, 5vv, 16413; Congregati sunt inimici nostri, 3vv, bc, 16424; Peccavi, O bone Jesu, 1v, bc, 16453; Lauda Jerusalem Dominum, 5vv, vns, insts, I-Nf (? from op.6) |
|
Sidonio e Dorisbe (F. Melosio), op, Venice, S Moisè, 1642, lost |
|
Bizzarrie poetiche poste in musica, 1–3vv [libro primo, op.1] (1635) |
|
Bizzarrie poetiche poste in musica, libro secondo, 1–3vv [op. 2] (1636); ed. in ISS, vii (1986), 177–244; 1 ed. in Leopold |
|
Bizzarrie poetiche poste in musica, libro terzo, 1–3vv, op.4 (1639); 2 ed. in G. Benvenuti, 35 arie di vari autori del secolo XVII (Milan, 1922); 1 ed. in Whenham; 1 ed. in Leopold |
CaffiS
EitnerQ (‘Fonte’ and ‘Fontei’)
FortuneISS
GaspariC, ii, v
MischiatiI
F. Sansovino: Venetia, città nobilissima et singolare (Venice, 1581, rev. 3/1663/R by G. Martinioni), 168ff
N. Pirrotta: ‘Il caval zoppo e il vetturino: cronache di Parnaso 1642’, CHM, iv (1966), 215–26
E. Rosand: ‘Barbara Strozzi, virtuosissima cantatrice: the Composer’s Voice’, JAMS, xxxi (1978), 241–81
J. Whenham: Duet and Dialogue in the Age of Monteverdi (Ann Arbor, 1982), i, 17, 113, 202, 216–26, 243; ii, 134, 137, 142–3, 448–69
J. Roche: ‘Musica diversa di Compietà: Compline and its Music in Seventeenth-Century Italy’, PRMA, cix (1982–3), 60–79, esp. 64, 70, 73
J. Roche: North Italian Church Music in the Age of Monteverdi (Oxford, 1984), 75, 138
D. Pinto: ‘The Music of the Hattons’, RMARC, no.23 (1990), 79–108, esp. 96
R.R. Holzer: ‘“Sono d'altro garbo … le canzonette che si cantano oggi”: Pietro della Valle on Music and Modernity in the Seventeenth Century’, Studi musicali, xxi (1992), 253–306, esp. 268–9
S. Leopold: Al modo d'Orfeo: Dichtung und Musik im italienischen Sologesang des frühen 17. Jahrhunderts, AnMc, no.29 (1995), 55, 57, 222–3, 245–8, 280; ii, 62–3, 75, catalogue, indexes
JOHN WHENHAM