(b Mantua, bap. 8 Nov 1590; d Mantua,1 Aug 1628). Italian composer. He belonged to a cadet branch of the ruling house of Mantua and spent his whole life in that city. He devoted all his adult years to the ducal church of S Barbara, where he was first appointed as clerk in April 1608. He served as a substitute sub-deacon from December 1608 to May 1610 and as a substitute deacon from December 1610 to August 1612. He was chaplain from September 1612 until, in August 1617, he was given a benefice, which he held until July 1623. During this time he was one of four beneficed priests responsible for chanting the Offices and the intonations during services. From the following month until his death he was a minor canon. In addition he was maestro di canto fermo from February 1624 to March 1626. He wrote a certain amount of music for S Barbara, some of which is lost. The surviving works comprise psalms for various hours of the Office, a Magnificat, a Salve regina and litanies, all for four voices, and the five-part Missa ‘Non vos relinquam’. Some of these works are dated 1625, a few are definitely early works (his first compositions date from 1611), and several others seem to belong to his later years. His only known secular printed collection is dedicated to Carlo Mandrutio, Cardinal and Prince of Trent. This volume comprises 18 canzonettas for three voices and five solo songs, two of which are settings of the same sacred text. The solo songs (which are printed in the basso continuo partbook) are principally in three triple-metre sections with a brief instrumental ending and represent a transitional stage between the simple strophic aria and the more complex cantata.
MSS in I-Mc Fondo S Barbara unless otherwise stated
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Il primo libro delle canzonette … con … arie, 1, 3vv, chit/other inst (Venice, 1619) |
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Psalmi ad horas … cum Salve regina ac Letaniae Beatae Mariae Virginis, 4vv; 3 psalmi ad nonam, 4vv; 3 psalmi ad sextam, 4vv; 3 psalmi ad nonam, 4vv |
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Salmi, Magnificat, 4vv (illuminated codex, ded. Gastoldi) |
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Missa ‘Non vos relinquam’, 5vv, I-UD (illuminated S Barbara codex, 1622) |
FenlonMM
FortuneISS
P.M. Tagmann: ‘La cappella dei maestri cantori della basilica palatina di Santa Barbara a Mantova (1565–1630)’, Civiltà mantovana, iv (1970), 376–400, esp. 383
F. Campogalliani: ‘Francesco Gonzaga: un sacerdote nella storia musicale della chiesa palatina di Santa Barbara’, Civiltà mantovana, viii (1974), 277–92
S. Parisi: Ducal Patronage of Music in Mantua, 1587–1627: an Archival Study (diss., U. of Illinois, 1989), 448–9
NIGEL FORTUNE (with SUSAN PARISI)