Gonzaga, Guglielmo

(b Mantua, 24 April 1538; d Goito, nr Mantua, 14 Aug 1587). Italian composer and patron of music. Shortly before he succeeded his uncle, Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga, as Duke of Mantua in 1556, he founded the palatine basilica of S Barbara, which was completed in 1565 with an impressive organ designed by Girolamo Cavazzoni and constructed by the Brescian builder Graziadio Antegnati (i). Throughout his reign he maintained a strong interest in the music of the new chapel, then directed by Wert and Gastoldi, as well as in court music. He secured from Pope Gregory XIII a concession, dated 10 November 1583, for S Barbara's specially constituted college of canons to practise an independent liturgy, and he was personally involved in attempts to attract Marenzio and Annibale Zoilo to Mantua. Although he failed in this, mainly because of Vatican political machinations, his relationship with Palestrina seems to have been close; Palestrina composed a series of masses on chants from the S Barbara liturgy, which reflect the alternatim method of performance practised there, and his motets Gaude Barbara beata and Beata Barbara were also presumably composed for the ducal chapel. Palestrina and Guglielmo corresponded from 1568 until the duke's death, discussing Guglielmo's own compositions and the chants that he sent to Palestrina, who later proposed to publish them in the revised version of the antiphonary and gradual. Guglielmo also appears to have been on good terms with Wert. His earliest published composition, Padre ch'el ciel (a different setting from that in RISM 1583¹³), appeared in Wert's fourth book of five-voice madrigals (1567); but there is no evidence to support Carol MacClintock's contention (CMM, xxiv/4, 1965) that further works by him were published in Wert’s madrigal books.

The anonymous Madrigali a cinque voci (1583¹³) can be identified as Guglielmo's since the opening setting, Padre ch'el ciel, was used as a parody model by Lodovico Agostini in Le lagrime del peccatore a sei voci (Venice, 1586), where he revealed the composer of the original. Quotations from Guglielmo's madrigals can also be found among the numerous musical and textual references in Girolamo Belli's I furti (Venice, 1584). The Sacrae cantiones (1583¹), which also appeared anonymously, is probably his work, since the copies which came from the S Barbara library (now in I-Mc SB8) are inscribed ‘Mottetti di S[ua]. A[ltezza]. a 5’ (‘Motets by His Highness for five voices’) in a contemporary hand. Moreover, this is probably the publication of which Guglielmo sent a copy to Palestrina in August 1584 and to which Pallavicino referred admiringly in the dedication of his Primo libro de madrigali a sei voci (Venice, 1587). The appearance of these two anonymous volumes published in the same year by Gardane raises the possibility that the anonymous Villotte mantovane (Venice, 1583), also published by Gardane, is Guglielmo's work as well. A series of letters (now in I-MAa) refers to the lost Magnificat settings printed by Gardane (1586); two manuscripts from the Fondo S Barbara (9 and 13, now in I-Mc) containing anonymous Magnificat settings may include the contents of the lost volumes (the Sacrae cantiones are duplicated in this way).

Guglielmo's activities as a composer place him with a small group of contemporary or near-contemporary aristocrats – among them Alessandro Striggio (i), Gesualdo, Del Turco and Fontanelli – whose open compositional activities symbolize a significant alteration in the attitudes of North Italian court society towards composers. It is worth noting, however, that Duke Guglielmo, whose social status was much higher than these others, preferred to publish his music anonymously. It was no doubt for his practical attempts as well as for his generous patronage that composers flattered him, dedicated works to him and corresponded with him on musical matters; among the many who did so apart from Palestrina and Wert are Vincenzo Galilei, Francisco Guerrero, Alessandro Striggio and Giovanni Maria Nanino. It is clear from his correspondence with Palestrina that Guglielmo sent to him for criticism a motet and a madrigal in 1570, a mass in 1574 and further ‘canti’ in 1585 and 1587. Even with such distinguished advice, Guglielmo's attempt to become an admired composer incognito does not seem to have generated widespread enthusiasm, and in 1586, on account of the small sales of one of the earlier publications, Gardane respectfully refused to publish a Magnificat that the duke had recently composed. Moreover, Guglielmo's severely conservative musical tastes and austere conception of the role of music in the affairs of a well-regulated post-Reformation Catholic state imposed serious constraints on the artistic freedom of Mantuan composers during the last decade of his rule.

WORKS

all anonymous unless otherwise stated

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BertolottiM

EinsteinIM

FenlonMM

P. Canal: Della musica in Mantova (Venice, 1881/R)

F.X. Haberl: ‘Das Archiv der Gonzaga’, KJb, i (1886), 31–45

K. Jeppesen: ‘Über einen Brief Palestrinas’, Festschrift Peter Wagner zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. K. Weinmann (Leipzig, 1926/R), 100–07

G. Cesari: ‘L'archivio musicale di S. Barbara in Mantova ed una messa di Guglielmo Gonzaga’, Theodor Kroyer: Festschrift, ed. H. Zenck, H. Schultz and W. Gerstenberg (Regensburg, 1933), 118–29

O. Strunk: ‘Guglielmo Gonzaga and Palestrina's Missa Dominicalis’, MQ, xxxiii (1947), 228–39; repr. in Essays on Music in the Western World (New York, 1974), 94–107

K. Jeppesen: ‘Pierluigi da Palestrina, Herzog Guglielmo Gonzaga und die neugefundenen Mantovaner-Messen Palestrinas’, AcM, xxv (1953), 132–79

C. Gallico: ‘Guglielmo Gonzaga signore della musica’, NRMI, xi (1977), 321–34

R. Sherr: ‘The Publications of Guglielmo Gonzaga’, JAMS, xxxi (1978), 118–25

R. Sherr: ‘Mecenatismo musicale a Mantova: le nozze di Vincenzo Gonzaga e Margherita Farnese’, RIM, xix (1984), 3–20

P. Besutti: ‘Catalogo tematico delle monodie liturgiche della Basilica Palatina di S. Barbara in Mantova: I canti dell'Ordinario’, Le fonti musicali in Italia, studi e ricerche, ii (1988), 53–66

D. Butchart: ‘The Letters of Alessandro Striggio: an Edition with Translation and Commentary’, RMARC, xxiii (1990), 1–78

I. Fenlon: ‘Patronage, Music and Liturgy in Renaissance Mantua’, Plainsong in the Age of Polyphony, ed. T. Kelly (Cambridge, 1992), 209–35

I. Fenlon, ed.: Giaches Wert: Letters and Documents (Paris, 1999)

IAIN FENLON