Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 music theorist

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 of the Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus

Aristoxenus

Aristoxenus of Tarentum was a Greek Peripatetic philosopher, and a pupil of Aristotle. Most of his writings, which dealt with philosophy, ethics and music, have been lost, but one musical treatise, Elements of Harmony, survives incomplete, as well as some fragments concerning rhythm and...

 and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

 as well as to musical tuning

Musical tuning

In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...

.

Life

Zarlino was born in Chioggia

Chioggia

Chioggia is a coastal town and comune of the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy.-Geography:...

, near Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

. His early education was with the Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

s, and he later joined the order himself. In 1536 he was a singer at Chioggia Cathedral, and by 1539 he not only became a deacon, but became principal organist. In 1540 he was ordained, and in 1541 went to Venice to study with the famous contrapuntist and maestro di cappella of Saint Mark's, Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert

Adrian Willaert was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance and founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers who moved to Italy and transplanted the polyphonic Franco-Flemish style there....

.

In 1565, on the resignation of Cipriano de Rore

Cipriano de Rore

Cipriano de Rore was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy...

, Zarlino took over the post of maestro di cappella of St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical positions in Italy, and held it until his death. While maestro di cappella he taught some of the principal figures of the Venetian school of composers, including Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance period, most famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music composed in the Venetian polychoral style. He was born in Correggio and died in Parma...

, Girolamo Diruta

Girolamo Diruta

Girolamo Diruta was an Italian organist, music theorist, and composer. He was famous as a teacher, for his treatise on counterpoint, and for his part in the development of keyboard technique, particularly on the organ...

, and Giovanni Croce

Giovanni Croce

Giovanni Croce was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance, of the Venetian School...

, as well as Vincenzo Galilei

Vincenzo Galilei

Vincenzo Galilei was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and the father of the famous astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei and of the lute virtuoso and composer Michelagnolo Galilei...

, the father of the astronomer, and the famous reactionary polemicist Giovanni Artusi

Giovanni Artusi

Giovanni Maria Artusi was an Italian theorist, composer, and writer.Artusi was one of the most famous reactionaries in musical history, fiercely condemning the new style developing around 1600, the innovations of which defined the early Baroque era...

.

Works and influence

While he was a moderately prolific composer, and his motet

Motet

In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

s are polished and display a mastery of canonic counterpoint

Counterpoint

In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

, his principal claim to fame was his work as a theorist. While Pietro Aaron

Pietro Aron

Pietro Aron, also known as Pietro Aaron , was an Italian music theorist and composer. He was born in Florence and probably died in Bergamo .-Biography:...

 may have been the first theorist to describe a version of meantone

Meantone temperament

Meantone temperament is a musical temperament, which is a system of musical tuning. In general, a meantone is constructed the same way as Pythagorean tuning, as a stack of perfect fifths, but in meantone, each fifth is narrow compared to the ratio 27/12:1 in 12 equal temperament, the opposite of...

, Zarlino seems to have been the first to do so with exactitude, describing 2/7-comma meantone in his Le istitutioni harmoniche in 1558. Zarlino also described the 1/4-comma meantone and 1/3-comma meantone, considering all three temperaments to be usable. These are the precursors to the 50- 31- and 19-tone equal temperament

Equal temperament

An equal temperament is a musical temperament, or a system of tuning, in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical frequency ratio. As pitch is perceived roughly as the logarithm of frequency, this means that the perceived "distance" from every note to its nearest neighbor is the same for...

s, respectively. In his Dimonstrationi harmoniche of 1571, he revised the numbering of modes to emphasize C and the Ionian mode, thereby drawing closer to the harmonic and melodic system basing itself on tonality and the major and minor scales.

Zarlino was the first to recognize the primacy of the triad

Triad (music)

In music and music theory, a triad is a three-note chord that can be stacked in thirds. Its members, when actually stacked in thirds, from lowest pitched tone to highest, are called:* the Root...

 over the interval

Interval (music)

In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...

 as a means of harmonic thinking. His development of just intonation

Just intonation

In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...

 came from a realization of the imperfection of the intervals in the Pythagorean

Pythagoreanism

Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...

 system, and a desire to retain as much purity as possible using a limited number of tones. He was also the first to attempt an explanation of the old prohibition of parallel fifths and octaves as a rule of counterpoint, and the first to study the effect and harmonic implications of the false relation.

Zarlino's writings, primarily published by Francesco Franceschi

Francesco Franceschi

Francesco Franceschi was a printer in the Italian Renaissance. His roots were in Siena, though the bulk of his work was done in Venice....

, spread throughout Europe at the end of the 16th century. Translations and annotated versions were common in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, as well as in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 among the students of Sweelinck

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ...

, thus influencing the next generation of musicians who represented the early Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 style.

Zarlino's compositions are more conservative in idiom than those of many of his contemporaries. His madrigals avoid the homophonic textures commonly used by other composers, remaining polyphonic throughout, in the manner of his motets. His works were published between 1549 and 1567, and include 41 motets, mostly for five and six voices, and 13 secular works, mostly madrigals, for four and five voices. His 10 motets on the Song of Songs

Song of songs

Song of Songs, also known as the Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. It may also refer to:In music:* Song of songs , the debut album by David and the Giants* A generic term for medleysPlays...

 used the text of Isidoro Chiari

Isidoro Chiari

Isidoro Chiari, perhaps better known by his Latin name Isidorus Clarius and sometimes called Brixianus after the land of his birth, was one of the fathers of the Council of Trent and a translator of the Bible...

's translation of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

.

Recordings

• Gioseffo Zarlino, Canticum Canticorum Salomonis. Michael Noone, Ensemble Plus Ultra. GCD921406

External links

• Le istituzioni armoniche (scan of original Italian by the University of Strasbourg, France)
• http://euromusicology.zoo.cs.uu.nl/dynaweb/tmiweb/z/@Generic__CollectionView;cs=default;ts=default;lang=cs