Music history of Italy
Encyclopedia
The modern state of Italy did not come into being until 1561, though the roots of music on the Italian Peninsula
can be traced back to the music of Ancient Rome
. However, the underpinnings of much modern Italian music come from the Middle Ages
.
of Hippolytus
attested the singing of Psalms
with refrains of Alleluia
in Rome
. In 386, in imitation of Eastern models, St. Ambrose wrote hymns, some of whose texts still survive, and introduced antiphon
al psalmody to the West. Around 425, Pope Celestine I
contributed to the development of the Roman Rite
by introducing the responsorial
singing of a Gradual
, and Cassian, Bishop of Brescia, contributed to the development of the monastic Office
by adapting Egyptian monastic psalmody to Western usage. Later, around 530, St. Benedict
would arrange the weekly order of monastic psalmody in his Rule
. Later, in the 6th century, Venantius Fortunatus
created some of Christianity's most enduring hymns, including "Vexilla regis prodeunt," which would later become the most popular hymn of the Crusades
.
The earliest extant music in the West is plainsong
, a kind of monophonic
, unaccompanied, early Christian singing performed by Roman Catholic monks, which was largely developed roughly between the 7th and 12th centuries. Although Gregorian chant
has its roots in Roman chant and is popularly associated with Rome, it is not indigenous to Italy, nor was it the earliest nor the only Western plainchant tradition. Ireland, Spain, and France each developed a local plainchant tradition, but only in Italy did several chant traditions thrive simultaneously: Ambrosian chant
in Milan
, Old Roman chant
in Rome
, and Beneventan chant
in Benevento
and Montecassino. Gregorian chant, which supplanted the indigenous Old Roman and Beneventan traditions, derived from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant
in Carolingian
France. Gregorian chant later came to be strongly identified with Rome, especially as musical elements from the north were added to the Roman Rite
, such as the Credo
in 1014. This was part of a general trend wherein the manuscript tradition in Italy weakened and Rome began to follow northern plainchant traditions. Gregorian chant supplanted all the other Western plainchant traditions, Italian and non-Italian, except for Ambrosian chant, which survives to this day. The native Italian plainchant traditions are notable for a systematic use of ornate, stepwise
melodic motion within a generally narrower range, giving the Italian chant traditions a smoother, more undulating feel than the Gregorian. Crucial in the transmission of chant were the innovations of Guido d'Arezzo, whose Micrologus, written around 1020, described the musical staff, solmization
, and the Guidonian hand
(image, right). This early form of do-re-mi created a technical revolution in the speed at which chants could be learned, memorized, and recorded. Much of the European classical musical tradition, including opera
and symphonic
and chamber music
can be traced back to these Italian medieval developments in musical notation
, formal music education
and construction techniques for musical instrument
s.
Even as the northern chant traditions were displacing indigenous Italian chant, displaced musicians from the north contributed to a new thriving musical culture in 12th-century Italy. The Albigensian Crusade
, supposedly to attack Cathar heretics, brought southern France under northern French control and crushed Occitan culture and language. Most troubadour
s fled, especially to Spain and Italy. Italy developed its own counterparts to troubadours, called trovatori, including Sordello
of Mantua
. Frederick II
, the last great Hohenstaufen
Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, encouraged music at the Sicilian court, which became a refuge for these displaced troubadours, where they contributed to a melting pot of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim musical styles. Italian secular music was largely the province of these jongleurs, troubadors, and mimes. One important consequence of the troubadour influence during this period, in Italy and across Europe, was the gradual shift from writing strictly in Latin to the local language, as championed by Dante
in his treatise De vulgari eloquentia
; this development extended to the lyrics of popular songs and forms such as the madrigal
, meaning "in the mother tongue." Also around this time, Italian flagellant
s developed the Italian folk hymns known as spiritual laude.
Between 1317 and 1319, Marchettus of Padua
wrote the Lucidarium in artae musicae planae and the Pomerium artis musicae mensuratae, major treatises on plainchant and polyphony
, expounding a theory of rhythmic notation that paved the way for Trecento music
(Italian ars nova
). Around 1335, the Rossi Codex
, the earliest extant collection of Italian secular polyphony, included examples of indigenous Italian genres of the Trecento including early madrigal
s, cacce, and ballate
. The early madrigal was simpler than the more well-known later madrigals, usually consisting of tercets arranged polyphonically for two voices, with a refrain called a ritornello. The caccia was often in three-part harmony, with the top two lines set to words in musical canon. The early ballata was often a poem in the form of a virelai
set to a monophonic
melody. The Rossi Codex included music by Jacopo da Bologna
, the first famous Trecento composer.
The Ivrea Codex, dated around 1360, and the Squarcialupi Codex
, dated around 1410, were major sources of late Trecento music, including the music of Francesco Landini
, the famous blind composer. Landini's name was attached to his characteristic "Landini cadence
," in which the final note of the melody dips down two notes before returning, such as C-B-A-C. Trecento music influenced northern musicians such as Johannes Ciconia
, whose synthesis of the French and Italian styles presaged the "international" music typical of the Renaissance.
During the 15th century, Italy entered a slow period in native composition, with the exception of a few bright lights such as the performer and anthologist Leonardo Giustinian. As the powerful northern families such as the d'Este and Medici
built up powerful political dynasties, they brought northern composers of the Franco-Flemish school such as Josquin and Compère
to their courts. Starting in the last decades of the century, Italian composers such as Marchetto Cara
and Bartolomeo Tromboncino
wrote light, courtly songs called frottole
for the Mantua
n court of Isabella d'Este
. With the support of the Medici, the Florentine Mardi Gras season led to the creation of witty, earthy carnival songs called canti carnascialeschi.
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The 16th century saw the advent of printed polyphonic music and advances in instrumental music, which contributed to the international distribution of music characteristic of the Renaissance. In 1501, Ottaviano dei Petrucci published the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton, the first substantial collection of printed polyphonic music, and in 1516, Andrea Antico published the Frottole intablate da sonari organi, the earliest printed Italian music for keyboard. Italy became the primary center of harpsichord construction, violin production started in Cremona
in the workshop of Andrea Amati, and lutenist Francesco Canova da Milano earned Italy an international reputation for virtuosic musicianship.
Music achieved new heights of cultural respectability. Castiglione
's The Book of the Courtier
recommended proficiency at music as a courtly virtue, and Santa Maria di Loreto, the first music conservatory, was built in Naples
. Adrian Willaert
developed music for double chorus at St. Mark's
in Venice
. This tradition of Venetian polychoral music would reach its height in the early baroque music of Giovanni Gabrieli
. Unlike the earlier, simpler madrigals of the Trecento
, madrigals of the 16th century were written for several voices, often by non-Italians brought into the wealthy northern courts. Madrigalists aspired to create high art, often using the refined poetry of Petrarchan sonnets, and utilizing musically sophisticated techniques such as text painting. Composers such as Cipriano de Rore
and Orlando di Lasso experimented with increasing chromaticism
, which would culminate in the mannerist music of Carlo Gesualdo
. In 1558, Gioseffo Zarlino
, the premier musical theorist of the period, wrote the Istitutioni harmoniche, which addressed such practical musical issues as invertible counterpoint
. Lighter music was represented by the villanella
, which originated in popular songs of Naples
and spread throughout Italy.
Music was not immune to the politically charged atmosphere of Renaissance Italy. In 1559, Antonio Gardano published Musica nova, whose politically pro-republican partisan songs pleased the northern Italian republics and riled the Church. In 1562-1563, the third portion of the Council of Trent
addressed issues of music in the Church. Most paraliturgical music, including all but four Sequence
s were banned. An outright ban on polyphonic music was debated behind the scenes, and guidelines were issued requiring that church music have clear words and a pure, uplifting style. Although the tales of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
"rescuing" polyphony with the Missa Papae Marcelli
are no longer accepted by scholars, Palestrina's music remains the paradigm of the musical aesthetic promoted by the Church. Shortly afterwards, in 1614, the Editio medicea (Medicean Edition) of Gregorian chant was released, rewriting the Gregorian chant repertory to purge it of perceived corruptions and barbarisms, and return it to a "purer" state closer in style to Palestrinian melodies.
In the late 16th century and early 17th century, composers began pushing the limits of the Renaissance style. Madrigalism reached new heights of emotional expression and chromaticism in what Claudio Monteverdi
called his seconda pratica (second practice), which he saw originating with Cipriano de Rore
and developing in the music of composers such as Luca Marenzio
and Giaches de Wert
. This music was characterized by increased dissonance and by sections of homophony
, which led to such traits of the early baroque as unequal voices where the bass line drove the harmonies and the treble melody became more prominent and soloistic. This transitional period between the Renaissance and baroque included the development of the Sicilian polyphonic school in the works of Pietro Vinci, the first extant polyphony written by women, the fusion of Hebrew texts and European music in the works of Salomone Rossi, and the virtuosic women's music of Luzzasco Luzzaschi
performed by the Concerto delle donne
in Ferrara
.
The exact nature of ancient Greek musical drama is a matter of dispute. What is important, however, for the later development of Italian and European music is that poets and musicians of the Florentine Camerata
in the late 16th century thought—in the words of one of them, Jacopo Peri
--that the "ancient Greeks sang entire tragedies on the stage". Thus was born the musical version of the Italian Renaissance: paying tribute to classical Greece
by retelling Greek myths within a staged musical context—the first operas. The works emerged in this period with relatively simple melodies and the texts about Greek mythology sung in Italian. (Opera may have deeper roots in the Tuscan maggio drammatico
tradition). Three cities are especially important in this period in Italy: Venice
, as the birthplace of commercial opera; Rome
, for Palestrina
's school of Renaissance
polyphony; and Naples
, as the birthplace of church-sponsored music conservatories
. These conservatories evolved into training grounds, providing composers and musicians for Italy and, indeed, Europe as a whole. Claudio Monteverdi
is considered the first great composer of the new musical form, opera, the person who turned Florentine novelty into a "unified musical drama with a planned structure."
The years 1600 to 1750 encompass the musical Baroque
. A new dominance of melody within harmony at the expense of text led to great changes, including the expansion of instrumental resources of the orchestra. The keyboard was extended, and the making of stringed instruments by Antonio Stradivari
became a great industry in Cremona
. Instrumental music started to develop as a separate "track," quite apart from the traditional role of accompanying the human voice. Instrumental forms include such things as the sonata, symphony
, and concerto
. Important names in music within this period in Italy are Alessandro Scarlatti
, and Antonio Vivaldi
, representing the importance of Naples and Venice, respectively, within this period.
The physical resources for music advanced greatly during the 18th century. The great opera houses in Naples and Milan were built: the San Carlo Theater
and La Scala
, respectively. It is the age, as well, of the rise to prominence of the Neapolitan—and then Italian—Comic opera
. Important, too, is the restoring of balance between text and music in opera, largely through the librettos of Pietro Trapassi, called Metastasio
.
Important Italian composers in this century are: Domenico Scarlatti
, Benedetto Marcello
, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
, Niccolò Piccinni
, Giovanni Paisiello
, Luigi Boccherini
, Domenico Cimarosa
, and Luigi Cherubini
. It is also the age in which Italian music became international, so to speak, with many Italian composers beginning to work abroad.
for the more serious fare of Italian lyric Romanticsm. Although the generally light-hearted and ever-popular Rossini
was certainly an exception to that, Italian music of the 19th century is dominated at the beginning by the likes of Bellini
and Donizetti
, giving to Italian music the lyrical melodies that have remained associated with it ever since. Then, the last fifty years of the century were dominated by Giuseppe Verdi
, the greatest musical icon in Italian history. Verdi's music "sought universality within national character"; that is, much of what he composed in terms of historical themes could be related to his pan-Italian vision. Verdi was the composer of the Italian Risorgimento, the movement to unify Italy in the 19th century. Later in the century is also the time of the early career of Giacomo Puccini
, perhaps the greatest composer of pure melody in the history of Italian music.
Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of Italian musical form in the 19th century, and that which distinguishes it from musical developments elsewhere, is that it remained primarily operatic. All significant Italian composers of the century wrote opera almost to the exclusion of other forms, such as the symphony. There are no Italian symphonists in this century, the way one might speak of Brahms
in Germany, for example. Many Italian composers, however, did write significant sacred music, such as Rossini a Stabat Mater and his late Petite Messe solennelle
and Verdi Messa da Requiem and Quattro Pezzi Sacri
.
Romanticism in all European music certainly held on through the turn of the century. In Italy, the music of Verdi and Puccini continued to dominate for a number of years. Even the realistic plots and more modern compositional techniques of the operas of Italian Verismo
, such as Mascagni
's Cavalleria Rusticana
, did not greatly affect the extremely melodic nature of Italian music.
Italian Peninsula
The Italian Peninsula or Apennine Peninsula is one of the three large peninsulas of Southern Europe , spanning from the Po Valley in the north to the central Mediterranean Sea in the south. The peninsula's shape gives it the nickname Lo Stivale...
can be traced back to the music of Ancient Rome
Ancient Roman music
Less is known about Ancient Roman music than is known about the music of ancient Greece. There is a number of at least partially extant sources on the music of the Greeks...
. However, the underpinnings of much modern Italian music come from the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
Before 1500
Italy was the site of several key musical developments in the development of the Christian liturgies in the West. Around 230, well before Christianity was legalized, the Apostolic TraditionApostolic Tradition
The Apostolic Tradition is an early Christian treatise which belongs to genre of the Church Orders. It has been described as of "incomparable importance as a source of information about church life and liturgy in the third century".Re-discovered in the 19th century, it was given the name of...
of Hippolytus
Hippolytus (writer)
Hippolytus of Rome was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome, where he was probably born. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca Hippolytus of Rome (170 – 235) was the most important 3rd-century theologian in the Christian Church in Rome,...
attested the singing of Psalms
Psalms
The Book of Psalms , commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible...
with refrains of Alleluia
Alleluia
The word "Alleluia" or "Hallelujah" , which at its most literal means "Praise Yah", is used in different ways in Christian liturgies....
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. In 386, in imitation of Eastern models, St. Ambrose wrote hymns, some of whose texts still survive, and introduced antiphon
Antiphon
An antiphon in Christian music and ritual, is a "responsory" by a choir or congregation, usually in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or other text in a religious service or musical work....
al psalmody to the West. Around 425, Pope Celestine I
Pope Celestine I
Pope Saint Celestine I was elevated to the papacy in the year 422, on November 3 according to the Liber Pontificalis, but on April 10 according to Tillemont....
contributed to the development of the Roman Rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
by introducing the responsorial
Responsory
-Definition:The most general of a responsory is any psalm, canticle, or other sacred musical work sung responsorially, that is, with a cantor or small group singing verses while the whole choir or congregation respond with a refrain. However, this article focuses on those chants of the western...
singing of a Gradual
Gradual
The Gradual is a chant or hymn in the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations. In the Tridentine Mass it was and is sung after the reading or chanting of the Epistle and before the Alleluia, or, during penitential seasons, before the Tract. In the Mass of Paul VI...
, and Cassian, Bishop of Brescia, contributed to the development of the monastic Office
Canonical hours
Canonical hours are divisions of time which serve as increments between the prescribed prayers of the daily round. A Book of Hours contains such a set of prayers....
by adapting Egyptian monastic psalmody to Western usage. Later, around 530, St. Benedict
Benedict of Nursia
Saint Benedict of Nursia is a Christian saint, honored by the Roman Catholic Church as the patron saint of Europe and students.Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, about to the east of Rome, before moving to Monte Cassino in the mountains of southern Italy. There is no...
would arrange the weekly order of monastic psalmody in his Rule
Rule of St Benedict
The Rule of Saint Benedict is a book of precepts written by St. Benedict of Nursia for monks living communally under the authority of an abbot. Since about the 7th century it has also been adopted by communities of women...
. Later, in the 6th century, Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus was a Latin poet and hymnodist in the Merovingian Court, and a Bishop of the early Catholic Church. He was never canonised but was venerated as Saint Venantius Fortunatus during the Middle Ages.-Life:Venantius Fortunatus was born between 530 and 540 A.D....
created some of Christianity's most enduring hymns, including "Vexilla regis prodeunt," which would later become the most popular hymn of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
.
Plainsong
Plainsong is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Though the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church did not split until long after the origin of plainchant, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.Plainsong is monophonic, consisting of a...
, a kind of monophonic
Texture (music)
In music, texture is the way the melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic materials are combined in a composition , thus determining the overall quality of sound of a piece...
, unaccompanied, early Christian singing performed by Roman Catholic monks, which was largely developed roughly between the 7th and 12th centuries. Although Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services...
has its roots in Roman chant and is popularly associated with Rome, it is not indigenous to Italy, nor was it the earliest nor the only Western plainchant tradition. Ireland, Spain, and France each developed a local plainchant tradition, but only in Italy did several chant traditions thrive simultaneously: Ambrosian chant
Ambrosian chant
Ambrosian chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Ambrosian rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to but distinct from Gregorian chant. It is primarily associated with the Archdiocese of Milan, and named after St. Ambrose much as Gregorian chant is named after Gregory the Great...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Old Roman chant
Old Roman chant
Old Roman chant is the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Roman rite of the Roman Catholic Church formerly performed in Rome, closely related to but distinct from the Gregorian chant, which gradually supplanted it between the 11th century and the 13th century...
in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, and Beneventan chant
Beneventan chant
Beneventan chant is a liturgical plainchant repertory of the Roman Catholic Church, used primarily in the orbit of the southern Italian ecclesiastical centers of Benevento and Montecassino, distinct from Gregorian chant and related to Ambrosian chant...
in Benevento
Benevento
Benevento is a town and comune of Campania, Italy, capital of the province of Benevento, 50 km northeast of Naples. It is situated on a hill 130 m above sea-level at the confluence of the Calore Irpino and Sabato...
and Montecassino. Gregorian chant, which supplanted the indigenous Old Roman and Beneventan traditions, derived from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant
Gallican chant
Gallican chant refers to the liturgical plainchant repertory of the Gallican rite of the Roman Catholic Church in Gaul, prior to the introduction and development of elements of the Roman rite from which Gregorian chant evolved...
in Carolingian
Carolingian
The Carolingian dynasty was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the...
France. Gregorian chant later came to be strongly identified with Rome, especially as musical elements from the north were added to the Roman Rite
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
, such as the Credo
Credo
A credo |Latin]] for "I Believe") is a statement of belief, commonly used for religious belief, such as the Apostles' Creed. The term especially refers to the use of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in the Mass, either as text, Gregorian chant, or other musical settings of the...
in 1014. This was part of a general trend wherein the manuscript tradition in Italy weakened and Rome began to follow northern plainchant traditions. Gregorian chant supplanted all the other Western plainchant traditions, Italian and non-Italian, except for Ambrosian chant, which survives to this day. The native Italian plainchant traditions are notable for a systematic use of ornate, stepwise
Steps and skips
In music, a step, or conjunct motion, is a linear or successive interval between two pitches which are consecutive scale degrees. Any larger interval is called a skip , or disjunct motion...
melodic motion within a generally narrower range, giving the Italian chant traditions a smoother, more undulating feel than the Gregorian. Crucial in the transmission of chant were the innovations of Guido d'Arezzo, whose Micrologus, written around 1020, described the musical staff, solmization
Solmization
Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note in a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world.In Europe and North America, solfège is the convention used most often...
, and the Guidonian hand
Guidonian hand
In Medieval music, the Guidonian hand was a mnemonic device used to assist singers in learning to sight-sing. Some form of the device may have been used by Guido of Arezzo, a medieval music theorist who wrote a number of treatises, including one instructing singers in sightreading...
(image, right). This early form of do-re-mi created a technical revolution in the speed at which chants could be learned, memorized, and recorded. Much of the European classical musical tradition, including opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and symphonic
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
and chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...
can be traced back to these Italian medieval developments in musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
, formal music education
Music education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
and construction techniques for musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s.
Even as the northern chant traditions were displacing indigenous Italian chant, displaced musicians from the north contributed to a new thriving musical culture in 12th-century Italy. The Albigensian Crusade
Albigensian Crusade
The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Catholic Church to eliminate Catharism in Languedoc...
, supposedly to attack Cathar heretics, brought southern France under northern French control and crushed Occitan culture and language. Most troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
s fled, especially to Spain and Italy. Italy developed its own counterparts to troubadours, called trovatori, including Sordello
Sordello
Sordello da Goito or Sordel de Goit was a 13th-century Lombard troubadour, born in the municipality of Goito in the province of Mantua...
of Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
. Frederick II
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II , was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors of the Middle Ages and head of the House of Hohenstaufen. His political and cultural ambitions, based in Sicily and stretching through Italy to Germany, and even to Jerusalem, were enormous...
, the last great Hohenstaufen
Hohenstaufen
The House of Hohenstaufen was a dynasty of German kings in the High Middle Ages, lasting from 1138 to 1254. Three of these kings were also crowned Holy Roman Emperor. In 1194 the Hohenstaufens also became Kings of Sicily...
Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, encouraged music at the Sicilian court, which became a refuge for these displaced troubadours, where they contributed to a melting pot of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim musical styles. Italian secular music was largely the province of these jongleurs, troubadors, and mimes. One important consequence of the troubadour influence during this period, in Italy and across Europe, was the gradual shift from writing strictly in Latin to the local language, as championed by Dante
DANTE
Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...
in his treatise De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia
De vulgari eloquentia is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist of four books, but abandoned in the middle of the second. It was probably composed shortly after Dante went into exile; internal evidence points to a date between 1302 and 1305...
; this development extended to the lyrics of popular songs and forms such as the madrigal
Madrigal (music)
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....
, meaning "in the mother tongue." Also around this time, Italian flagellant
Flagellant
Flagellants are practitioners of an extreme form of mortification of their own flesh by whipping it with various instruments.- History :Flagellantism was a 13th and 14th centuries movement, consisting of radicals in the Catholic Church. It began as a militant pilgrimage and was later condemned by...
s developed the Italian folk hymns known as spiritual laude.
Between 1317 and 1319, Marchettus of Padua
Marchetto da Padova
Marchetto da Padova was an Italian music theorist and composer of the late medieval era. His innovations in notation of time-values were fundamental to the music of the Italian ars nova, as was his work on defining the modes and refining tuning...
wrote the Lucidarium in artae musicae planae and the Pomerium artis musicae mensuratae, major treatises on plainchant and polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
, expounding a theory of rhythmic notation that paved the way for Trecento music
Music of the trecento
The Trecento was a period of vigorous activity in Italy in the arts, including painting, architecture, literature, and music. The music of the Trecento paralleled the achievements in the other arts in many ways, for example, in pioneering new forms of expression, especially in secular song in the...
(Italian ars nova
Ars nova
Ars nova refers to a musical style which flourished in France and the Burgundian Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages: more particularly, in the period between the preparation of the Roman de Fauvel and the death of the composer Guillaume de Machaut in 1377...
). Around 1335, the Rossi Codex
Rossi Codex
The Rossi Codex is a music manuscript collection of the 14th century. The manuscript is presently divided into two sections, one in the Vatican Library and another, smaller section in the Northern Italian town of Ostiglia. The codex contains 37 secular works including madrigals, cacce and,...
, the earliest extant collection of Italian secular polyphony, included examples of indigenous Italian genres of the Trecento including early madrigal
Madrigal (Trecento)
The Madrigal is an Italian musical form of the 14th century. The form flourished ca. 1300 – 1370 with a short revival near 1400. It was a composition for two voices, sometimes on a pastoral subject...
s, cacce, and ballate
Ballata
The ballata is an Italian poetic and musical form, which was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musical structure AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the French musical 'forme fixe' virelai...
. The early madrigal was simpler than the more well-known later madrigals, usually consisting of tercets arranged polyphonically for two voices, with a refrain called a ritornello. The caccia was often in three-part harmony, with the top two lines set to words in musical canon. The early ballata was often a poem in the form of a virelai
Virelai
A virelai is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three formes fixes and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries.A virelai is similar to a rondeau...
set to a monophonic
Monophony
In music, monophony is the simplest of textures, consisting of melody without accompanying harmony. This may be realized as just one note at a time, or with the same note duplicated at the octave . If the entire melody is sung by two voices or a choir with an interval between the notes or in...
melody. The Rossi Codex included music by Jacopo da Bologna
Jacopo da Bologna
Jacopo da Bologna was an Italian composer of the Trecento, the period sometimes known as the Italian ars nova. He was one of the first composers of this group, making him a contemporary of Gherardello da Firenze and Giovanni da Firenze...
, the first famous Trecento composer.
The Ivrea Codex, dated around 1360, and the Squarcialupi Codex
Squarcialupi Codex
The Squarcialupi Codex is an illuminated manuscript compiled in Florence, Italy in the early 15th century...
, dated around 1410, were major sources of late Trecento music, including the music of Francesco Landini
Francesco Landini
Francesco degli Organi, Francesco il Cieco, or Francesco da Firenze, called by later generations Francesco Landini or Landino was an Italian composer, organist, singer, poet and instrument maker...
, the famous blind composer. Landini's name was attached to his characteristic "Landini cadence
Landini cadence
A Landini cadence , or under-third cadence, is a type of cadence, a technique in music composition, named after Francesco Landini , a blind Florentine organist, in honor of his extensive use of the technique...
," in which the final note of the melody dips down two notes before returning, such as C-B-A-C. Trecento music influenced northern musicians such as Johannes Ciconia
Johannes Ciconia
Johannes Ciconia was a late medieval composer and music theorist who worked most of his adult life in Italy, particularly in the service of the Papal Chapels and at the cathedral of Padua....
, whose synthesis of the French and Italian styles presaged the "international" music typical of the Renaissance.
During the 15th century, Italy entered a slow period in native composition, with the exception of a few bright lights such as the performer and anthologist Leonardo Giustinian. As the powerful northern families such as the d'Este and Medici
Medici
The House of Medici or Famiglia de' Medici was a political dynasty, banking family and later royal house that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici in the Republic of Florence during the late 14th century. The family originated in the Mugello region of the Tuscan countryside,...
built up powerful political dynasties, they brought northern composers of the Franco-Flemish school such as Josquin and Compère
Compere
Compère can refer to:* Loyset Compère, a French composer of the Renaissance* Louis Fursy Henri Compere , a French general in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars...
to their courts. Starting in the last decades of the century, Italian composers such as Marchetto Cara
Marchetto Cara
Marchetto Cara was an Italian composer, lutenist and singer of the Renaissance. He was mainly active in Mantua, was well-connected with the Gonzaga and Medici families, and along with Bartolomeo Tromboncino, was well known as a composer of frottolas.-Life:Next to nothing is known of his early life...
and Bartolomeo Tromboncino
Bartolomeo Tromboncino
Bartolomeo Tromboncino was an Italian composer of the middle Renaissance. He is mainly famous as a composer of frottola; he is principally infamous for murdering his wife...
wrote light, courtly songs called frottole
Frottola
The frottola was the predominant type of Italian popular, secular song of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It was the most important and widespread predecessor to the madrigal...
for the Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
n court of Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este
Isabella d'Este was Marchesa of Mantua and one of the leading women of the Italian Renaissance as a major cultural and political figure. She was a patron of the arts as well as a leader of fashion, whose innovative style of dressing was copied by women throughout Italy and at the French court...
. With the support of the Medici, the Florentine Mardi Gras season led to the creation of witty, earthy carnival songs called canti carnascialeschi.
Renaissance era, 16th century
- For more details, see also Roman SchoolRoman SchoolIn music history, the Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music, in Rome, during the 16th and 17th centuries, therefore spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. The term also refers to the music they produced...
, Venetian School, Venetian polychoral styleVenetian polychoral styleThe Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation...
, Music of VeniceMusic of VeniceThe city of Venice in Italy has played an important role in the development of the music of Italy. The Venetian state—i.e. the medieval Maritime Republic of Venice—was often popularly called the "Republic of Music", and an anonymous Frenchman of the 17th century is said to have remarked that "In...
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
in the workshop of Andrea Amati, and lutenist Francesco Canova da Milano earned Italy an international reputation for virtuosic musicianship.
Baldassare Castiglione
Baldassare Castiglione, count of was an Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and a prominent Renaissance author.-Biography:Castiglione was born into an illustrious Lombard family at Casatico, near Mantua, where his family had constructed an impressive palazzo...
's The Book of the Courtier
The Book of the Courtier
The Book of the Courtier is a courtesy book. It was written by Baldassare Castiglione over the course of many years, beginning in 1508, and published in 1528 by the Aldine Press just before his death...
recommended proficiency at music as a courtly virtue, and Santa Maria di Loreto, the first music conservatory, was built in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. 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....
developed music for double chorus at St. Mark's
St Mark's Basilica
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture...
in 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...
. This tradition of Venetian polychoral music would reach its height in the early baroque music of Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...
. Unlike the earlier, simpler madrigals of the Trecento
Trecento
The Trecento refers to the 14th century in Italian cultural history.Commonly the Trecento is considered to be the beginning of the Renaissance in art history...
, madrigals of the 16th century were written for several voices, often by non-Italians brought into the wealthy northern courts. Madrigalists aspired to create high art, often using the refined poetry of Petrarchan sonnets, and utilizing musically sophisticated techniques such as text painting. Composers such as Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy...
and Orlando di Lasso experimented with increasing chromaticism
Chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
, which would culminate in the mannerist music of Carlo Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo, known as Gesualdo di Venosa or Gesualdo da Venosa , Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was an Italian nobleman, lutenist, composer, and murderer....
. In 1558, Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.-Life:Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice...
, the premier musical theorist of the period, wrote the Istitutioni harmoniche, which addressed such practical musical issues as invertible 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,...
. Lighter music was represented by the villanella
Villanella
In music, a villanella is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century...
, which originated in popular songs of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
and spread throughout Italy.
Music was not immune to the politically charged atmosphere of Renaissance Italy. In 1559, Antonio Gardano published Musica nova, whose politically pro-republican partisan songs pleased the northern Italian republics and riled the Church. In 1562-1563, the third portion of the Council of Trent
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent was the 16th-century Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church. It is considered to be one of the Church's most important councils. It convened in Trent between December 13, 1545, and December 4, 1563 in twenty-five sessions for three periods...
addressed issues of music in the Church. Most paraliturgical music, including all but four Sequence
Sequence (poetry)
A sequence is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year.The sequence has always been sung...
s were banned. An outright ban on polyphonic music was debated behind the scenes, and guidelines were issued requiring that church music have clear words and a pure, uplifting style. Although the tales of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...
"rescuing" polyphony with the Missa Papae Marcelli
Missa Papae Marcelli
Missa Papae Marcelli, or Pope Marcellus Mass, is a mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It is his most well-known and most often-performed mass, and is frequently taught in university courses on music...
are no longer accepted by scholars, Palestrina's music remains the paradigm of the musical aesthetic promoted by the Church. Shortly afterwards, in 1614, the Editio medicea (Medicean Edition) of Gregorian chant was released, rewriting the Gregorian chant repertory to purge it of perceived corruptions and barbarisms, and return it to a "purer" state closer in style to Palestrinian melodies.
In the late 16th century and early 17th century, composers began pushing the limits of the Renaissance style. Madrigalism reached new heights of emotional expression and chromaticism in what Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
called his seconda pratica (second practice), which he saw originating with Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore
Cipriano de Rore was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy...
and developing in the music of composers such as Luca Marenzio
Luca Marenzio
Luca Marenzio 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 form in its late stage of development, prior to its early Baroque transformation by Monteverdi...
and Giaches de Wert
Giaches de Wert
Giaches de Wert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active in Italy. Intimately connected with the progressive musical center of Ferrara, he was one of the leaders in developing the style of the late Renaissance madrigal...
. This music was characterized by increased dissonance and by sections of homophony
Homophony
In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...
, which led to such traits of the early baroque as unequal voices where the bass line drove the harmonies and the treble melody became more prominent and soloistic. This transitional period between the Renaissance and baroque included the development of the Sicilian polyphonic school in the works of Pietro Vinci, the first extant polyphony written by women, the fusion of Hebrew texts and European music in the works of Salomone Rossi, and the virtuosic women's music of Luzzasco Luzzaschi
Luzzasco Luzzaschi
Luzzasco Luzzaschi was an Italian composer, organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance. He was born and died in Ferrara, and despite evidence of travels to Rome it is assumed that Luzzaschi spent the majority of his life in his native city.As a pupil of Cipriano de Rore, Luzzaschi developed...
performed by the Concerto delle donne
Concerto delle donne
The concerto delle donne was a group of professional female singers in the late Renaissance court of Ferrara, Italy, renowned for their technical and artistic virtuosity. The ensemble was founded by Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, in 1580 and was active until the court was dissolved in 1597...
in Ferrara
Ferrara
Ferrara is a city and comune in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. It is situated 50 km north-northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po River, located 5 km north...
.
Baroque era, 16th – 18th centuries
Florentine Camerata
The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama...
in the late 16th century thought—in the words of one of them, Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri
Jacopo Peri was an Italian composer and singer of the transitional period between the Renaissance and Baroque styles, and is often called the inventor of opera...
--that the "ancient Greeks sang entire tragedies on the stage". Thus was born the musical version of the Italian Renaissance: paying tribute to classical Greece
History of Greece
The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern state of Greece, as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied much through the ages, and, as a result, the history of Greece is similarly...
by retelling Greek myths within a staged musical context—the first operas. The works emerged in this period with relatively simple melodies and the texts about Greek mythology sung in Italian. (Opera may have deeper roots in the Tuscan maggio drammatico
Maggio drammatico
Literally, "plays of May" the Maggio drammatico refers to medieval musical and dramatic rituals at planting time in central Italy, typical of many agrarian societies. Their origins, however, are certainly prehistoric...
tradition). Three cities are especially important in this period in Italy: 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...
, as the birthplace of commercial opera; Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
, for Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...
's school of Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
polyphony; and Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, as the birthplace of church-sponsored music conservatories
Music Conservatories of Naples
The Music Conservatory of Naples is a music institution in Naples, southern Italy. It is currently located in the complex of San Pietro a Majella.-San Pietro a Majella:...
. These conservatories evolved into training grounds, providing composers and musicians for Italy and, indeed, Europe as a whole. Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
is considered the first great composer of the new musical form, opera, the person who turned Florentine novelty into a "unified musical drama with a planned structure."
The years 1600 to 1750 encompass the musical 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...
. A new dominance of melody within harmony at the expense of text led to great changes, including the expansion of instrumental resources of the orchestra. The keyboard was extended, and the making of stringed instruments by Antonio Stradivari
Antonio Stradivari
Antonio Stradivari was an Italian luthier and a crafter of string instruments such as violins, cellos, guitars, violas, and harps. Stradivari is generally considered the most significant artisan in this field. The Latinized form of his surname, Stradivarius, as well as the colloquial, "Strad", is...
became a great industry in Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
. Instrumental music started to develop as a separate "track," quite apart from the traditional role of accompanying the human voice. Instrumental forms include such things as the sonata, symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
, and concerto
Concerto
A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...
. Important names in music within this period in Italy are Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.-Life:Scarlatti was born in...
, and Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed because of his red hair, was an Italian Baroque composer, priest, and virtuoso violinist, born in Venice. Vivaldi is recognized as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence during his lifetime was widespread over Europe...
, representing the importance of Naples and Venice, respectively, within this period.
San Carlo
San Carlo is the Italian for Saint Charles, and may refer to:* Charles Borromeo, also known as San Carlo Borromeo* San Carlo all'Arena, a neighbourhood in Naples where the Bourbon Hospice for the Poor is located...
and La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, respectively. It is the age, as well, of the rise to prominence of the Neapolitan—and then Italian—Comic opera
Comic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
. Important, too, is the restoring of balance between text and music in opera, largely through the librettos of Pietro Trapassi, called Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
.
Important Italian composers in this century are: Domenico Scarlatti
Domenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...
, Benedetto Marcello
Benedetto Marcello
Benedetto Marcello was a Venetian composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.-Life:...
, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.-Biography:Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music there under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others...
, Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni
Niccolò Piccinni was an Italian composer of symphonies, sacred music, chamber music, and opera. Although he is somewhat obscure, even to music lovers today, Piccinni was one of the most popular composers of opera—particularly the Neapolitan opera buffa—of his day...
, Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...
, Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No...
, Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
, and Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini
Luigi Cherubini was an Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the greatest of his contemporaries....
. It is also the age in which Italian music became international, so to speak, with many Italian composers beginning to work abroad.
19th century
The 19th century is the age of Romanticism in European literature, art, and music. Italian opera forsakes the Comic operaComic opera
Comic opera denotes a sung dramatic work of a light or comic nature, usually with a happy ending.Forms of comic opera first developed in late 17th-century Italy. By the 1730s, a new operatic genre, opera buffa, emerged as an alternative to opera seria...
for the more serious fare of Italian lyric Romanticsm. Although the generally light-hearted and ever-popular Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
was certainly an exception to that, Italian music of the 19th century is dominated at the beginning by the likes of Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
and Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
, giving to Italian music the lyrical melodies that have remained associated with it ever since. Then, the last fifty years of the century were dominated by Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, the greatest musical icon in Italian history. Verdi's music "sought universality within national character"; that is, much of what he composed in terms of historical themes could be related to his pan-Italian vision. Verdi was the composer of the Italian Risorgimento, the movement to unify Italy in the 19th century. Later in the century is also the time of the early career of Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
, perhaps the greatest composer of pure melody in the history of Italian music.
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
in Germany, for example. Many Italian composers, however, did write significant sacred music, such as Rossini a Stabat Mater and his late Petite Messe solennelle
Petite Messe Solennelle
Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle was written in 1863, "the last", the composer called it, "of my péchés de vieillesse" .....
and Verdi Messa da Requiem and Quattro Pezzi Sacri
Quattro Pezzi Sacri
The Quattro Pezzi Sacri, or Four Sacred Pieces, are choral works by Giuseppe Verdi. Written separately and with different origins and purposes, they were nevertheless published together, in 1898, and are often performed as a cycle in this sequence:...
.
Romanticism in all European music certainly held on through the turn of the century. In Italy, the music of Verdi and Puccini continued to dominate for a number of years. Even the realistic plots and more modern compositional techniques of the operas of Italian Verismo
Verismo
Verismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
, such as Mascagni
Pietro Mascagni
Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
's Cavalleria Rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
, did not greatly affect the extremely melodic nature of Italian music.