Medieval, Renaissance, Early Baroque Music Composers

Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Baroque Music Composers (a selection)

Music 1253

Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), a member of German nobility, was placed as a novice to the nuns at the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg at the age of eight. She became a nun in 1113, and was elected superior at the same monastery in 1136. In addition to being a composer, was known for her works in the fields of literature, science, and religion. She wrote a play with music, Ordo virtutum ("The Play of the Virtues") which is the earliest known example of a morality play. [HRP, SRM, WAC] links
Pérotin (fl. ca. 1180-1238) generally is associated with the Notre Dame or Paris School of composition because of his association with the Cathedral of Notre Dame during his time (although there is no evidence that he ever held a position at the Cathedral). Anonymous IV described Pérotin as optimus discantor (best maker of discant). According to Anonymous IV, he revised many of the earlier organa by making additions and alterations, making bring them more up-to-date in style. Examples of changes he introduced include a substitution of sections with new counterpoint in a rhythmically tighter style, with carefully controlled phrase lengths, more balance between phrases, and extended use of voice exchange, adding a third part (triplum) to organum duplum. He also wrote many clausulae to replace the earlier more florid and rhythmic flowing organa. Many of these clausulae came to be performed as separate pieces. The tenor parts in the clausula sections of his organa characteristically were written in a series of repeated rhythmic motives (talea). [JJS, MR, SMR, SPR] links

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Guillaume de Machaut (ca. 1300-1377), French composer and poet, was born in the province of Champagne in northern France, possibly in Reims. He is considered the greatest Ars nova musician. About 1323, Machaut became secretary to John of Luxemborg, King of Bohemia, a position he held until the King's death in 1346. He wrote many motets and chansons. His largest and most important composition was the Messe de Notre Dame. The greater part of Machaut's output is devoted to poetry that was not set to music. Machaut's motets and lais tend to be conservative in style, continuing the developments of the thirteenth century. [HRP, JJS, MLD, SE] links
Francesco Landini (Fiesole or Florence, ca. 1325/27-Florence, 2 September, 1397), Italian composer, organist, and philosopher, lost his sight (as a result of smallpox) as child. In 1361 Landini was organist at the monastery of Santa Trinita (the date of appointment is unknown). Part of the second generation of Italian Trecento composers, Landini also wrote and sang poetry, wrote on philosophical, religious and political topics, built instruments, and tuned and played organs, as well as numerous other instruments. (In addition to holding positions as church organist, he is described as playing the organetto, a small portative organ.)
Landini was a leading composer of ballate. Only secular music by Landini survives. The primary sources of Landini's music survive only in Italy, except for one manuscript from southern Germany (CZ-Pu XI E 9). [ALR, CBN, GRD, GSD, JAS, KJH, SE, SMR, SPR]
John Dunstable [Dunstaple] (ca. 1390-1453), English composer, was the most eminent of an influencial group of English composers, active in the first half of the 15th century. He spent much of his life in France, where he owned land. He was in the service of the Duke of Bedford (a brother to Henry the V and Regent to France), ca. 1422–1435. He also may have been an astronomer.
About fifty-two compositions are attributed in sources. Probably a great many more survive as anonymous. Most of his compositions begin in triple meter, with meter changes to duple during the piece and sometimes a closing section in triple. [GRD, GSD, KJB, SE] links

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Gilles de Bins dit Binchois (ca.1400-1460), Franco-Flemish composer, he is recognized as one of the three most influential composers of the first half of the fifteenth century, along with Du Fay and Dunstable. He served as organist at S. Waudru, Mons, 1419 to 1423. From about 1424 to 1425, Binchois was in service of the Duke of Suffolk in Paris. Toward the end of the 1420s he gained a position in the chapel of the court of Burgundy (which then incorporated parts of what is now France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany), becoming Court secretary about 1437.
Binchois is known to have written approximately four Magnificats, around 55 chansons or rondeaux, several ballads, some thirty motets and hymn settings, and twenty-eight mass sections. His Te Deum was the earliest polyphonic setting of this text to survive. Today he is remembered primarily for his secular chansons. His best-known piece is perhaps the caccia "Filles a marier". [ADSB, MKH, MR] links
Guillaume Du Fay (ca. 1400-1474) was born in Bersele (now Beersel-les-bruxelles), probably 5 of August 1397. His mother was Marie du Fayt and his father was an unnamed priest. He changed his name from Du Fayt to Du Fay probably in the 1420s in Italy. Dufay's contemporaries considered him the leading composer of his time. In 1409 he became a choir boy at Cambrai Cathedral. Du Fay works include possibly as many as seventy-six motets and other single pieces of sacred music, eighty-three secular vocal works, and possibly nine complete Masses, as well as about twenty-eight portions of Masses. [GRD, HRP, JCK, JJS, JMF] links
Johannes Ockeghem (Saint-Ghislain, province of Hainaut [near Mons] ca. 1410/20-1497), Franco-Flemish composer, served at the French Court for nearly half a century. His known pieces include thirteen masses, ten motets, and twenty chansons. In his masses and motets, Ockeghem extended the range of the bass parts. Previously, the bass would rarely go below c; Ockeghem wrote down further to G, F and even C. Ockeghem was not only a composer but also a respected teacher. Josquin Desprez was among his students. [ALR, HRP, GSD, SJK, SMR] links
Heinrich Isaac (Brabant [The Netherlands] or Flanders, ca. 1440/55-26 March 1517, Firenze [Florence]) Flemish composer, one of the leading contemporaries of Josquin Desprez. Isaac was a prolific composer, writing in most of the forms of the time. Perhaps his best-known composition is the part song "Innsbruck ich muss dich lassen". He was court composer for Emperor Maximilian I in Vienna and Innsbruck. [LEB] links

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Josquin Desprez (ca. 1440-1521), died 27 August 1521, served at several ducal courts including those of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of Milan (ca. 1474–1476), and Ercole d'Este, Duke of Ferrara (1503-1504). Josquin was the greatest composer of the high Renaissance, very profound in expression and varied in invention. Eighteen of his settings of the Ordinary of the mass survive. [HRP, MDN, SRM] links
Nicolas Gombert (ca. 1495-ca. 1560) was a Flemish composer. From 1526 until sometime between 1534 and 1540, Gombert was singer in Emperor Charles V's Court chapel, and from 1529, maître des enfants. Gombert composed only vocal music. Some of his compositions were composed for ensembles with up to thirteen distinct voices. His sacred music often features thick textures in low registers, creating dark, rich sonorities. For variety in his pieces, Gombert used constantly shifting voice combinations. This usually consisted of three or four out of five voices. [GRD, GSD, SE, SJK] links
Thomas Tallis (ca.1505-1585), English composer, was an organist of Dover Priory in 1532. Later he moved to London where he became organist at Saint Mary-at-Hill, 1537–1538. He then went to Waltham Abbey until the dissolution in 1540. His early works, composed at Waltham Abbey, include the latin motets, "Ave Dei Patris filia" and "Salve intermerata virgo". The more substantial motet, "Gaude gloriosa Dei mater", he composed during the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–1558). One of Tallis' best-know works is the fort-voice motet "Spem in alium nunquam habui". He was among the first composers to write music with English words, for the new liturgy of the Church of England. [KJB, NEE, SLM, SPR] links
Andrea Gabrieli (1510/33?-1585), Venetian composer and organist. He was an extremely versatile composer, producing music in every major style common in the sixteenth-century. The styles included motets, madrigals, mascherate, and other secular vocal music, theatre music, as well as extensive instrumental music. Many of Anrea Gabrieli's pieces were published after his death by his nephew Giovanni Gabrieli. [GSD, GRD, MR]

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Cypriano de Rore (1515/16-1565), Flemish composer who spent most of his life in Italy. In 1547 he became maestro di cappella at Ferrara. De Rore composed over 120 madrigals, most of which appeared in ten madrigal books, 1562–1566. He often used poetry of Petrarch in his madrigals. He treated the poetry with often vivid imagery or word painting. [AGP, JW, GRD, NEE, SE]
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (ca. 1525-2 February 2 1594, Rome), Italian composer and organist. About 1537 he became a choir boy at S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, where he was a student of Mallapert and Firmin Lebel. In 1544 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina became organist of St. Agapito, Palestrina. 12 June 1547 he married Lucrezia Gori in St. Agapito. In 1551 he was appointed maestro di cappella at the Cappella Giulia, Rome. From 13th of January, 1555, during the papacy of Julius III, Palestrina sang in the Cappella Sistina; however, after two changes of Pope (Pope Julius III died 23 March; Pope Marcellus II died 30 April 1555) in September 1555, Palestrina was dismissed because he was married, the new Pope, Paul IV, being more strict about the chapel's celibacy rule than Julius III had been. In 1577, Pope Gregory XIII appointed Palestrina and Annibale Zoilo to revise the main plainchant books of the Church, the Graduale and Antiphonale. Palestrina's first wife, Lucrezia Gori, died in 1580, and he remarried in 1581 to Virginia Dormoli, a widow of a rich furrier.
Palestrina composed almost four hundred motets and over one hundred masses, including his famous Missa Papae Marcelli. Other notable masses include Missa Hodie Christus natus est, Missa Aeterna Christi munera, and Missa de beata Virgine. His other liturgical music includes settings of the Lamentations for Holly Week taken from the Book of Jeremiah, thirty-five settings of the Magnificat, eleven litanies, and sixty-eight offertoires. His secular music consists of almost one hundred generally conservative Italian madrigals. He also wrote fort-nine five-voice Italian sacred madrigals. His first book of masses appeared in 1554, dedicated to the Pope. [ADSB, ALR, DGS, HRP, JAS, JW, KJB, MKH, SLL] links

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Orlande de Lassus [Roland de Lassus, Orlando di Lasso] (ca. 1530/32-1594), Franco-Flemish composer. As a boy singer in the service of the vice king of Sicily he went to Italy where he studied music. In his early twenties, 1553, he became maestro di cappella at S. John Lateran, Rome. He published his first book of five and six part motets, Il primo libro de mottetti, Antwerp, Belgium, 1556 (enlarged second edition, 1560, as Liber decimus quintus ecclesiasticarum cantionum). [He had previously published a more varied collection that contained motets, Il primo libro dove si contengono madrigali, vilanesche, canzoni francesi, e motetti, Antwerp, 1555.] Lassus waited to publish his first music until he had accumulated quite a number of pieces. It is not known how much other music he had written up to that point. [JMF, SJK; GJC] links
William Byrd (1543-4 July 1623), English composer, probably was a student of Thomas Tallis, and after his voice broke Byrd may have served as Tallis's assistant. As a composer, Byrd was exceptionally versatile, composing much sacred music in Latin and English, keyboard music, English part-songs (in an earlier style predating the madrigal), consort songs, as well as a significant body of chamber music. An important influence in Byrd's compositions is that he was a Catholic in Protestant England. He composed three Latin masses, written for three, four, and five voices, during the period of ca. 1592 to 1595. [JW, JAS, JW, KJB] links
Giulio Caccini (ca. 1545-1618) was an Italian composer and singer. He was a member of a group of Florentine musicians, writers and artists known as the Florentine Camerata. In 1600, Caccini replaced Emilio de' Cavalieri as musical director at the Medici Court.
While a member of the Camerata, he developed the style of singing called "musica recitativa" or "stile recitativo" [see Recitative]. Most of his compositions are for solo voice with basso continuo. [AGP, SJK, SPR, SRM] links
Tomás Luis de Victoria (Avila, Spain 1548-1611) about 1565 attented the Jesuit Collegio Germanico in Rome. In 1571 he returned to the Collegio Germanico to teach, becoming maestro in 1575, until 1577. In 1577, he left the Collegio Germanico to join the community of lay priests at the Oratory of S. Filippo Neri. After 1580 he returned to Spain where he became chaplain to the Empress Maria; from 1587 until her death in 1603 he was in her service at the Descalzas Reales Convent, Madrid. He continued as organist at the convent until his death.

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Victoria composed about twenty masses. Of these, four are paraphrase masses, fifteen are parody masses, and one is freely composed. Seven are based on his own motets. His Officium defunctorum, sex vocibus. In obitv et obseqviis, Sacrae Imperatricis ([Requiem Mass] published 1605) was composed for the funeral service of Empress Maria. [MDN, MKH, SJK, SLM, SRM; GJC]
Giovanni Gabrieli (ca. 1553-1612) was an Italian composer and organist, student and nephew of Andrea Gabrieli. He became organist at San Marco, Venice, 1 January 1585 and held the position until his death. [CBN, GSD, MR, SLL] links
Luca Marenzio (1553/54-1599) was one of the most important and well-known Italian madrigalists of the late 16th century. From 1588 to 1589 he was in the service of the Medici family of Florence. His compositions for the Medici include intermedi for the Ducal wedding celebrations, 1589. [DGS, SRM; GJC] links
John Dowland (1563-1626) English composer and lutenist, spent much of his life out of England, in France, north Germany, Italy, and Denmark. He published four volumes of songs or ayres with lute between 1597 and 1612. [BW] links
Claudio Monteverdi (Cremona, 1567 [baptized 15 May]-29 November 1643) was only fifteen when he composed his first work, a set of three-part motets. In 1607, his first opera, La Favola d'Orfeo was produced in Mantua. Orfeo may be considered the first opera to fully exploit the musical and dramatic potential of this new form of musical drama. He was appointed choirmaster of San Marco, Venice in 1613 and remained in this position until his death about 30 years later. After the first public opera house in Venice opened in 1637, Monteverdi wrote at least two new operas (that are still performed today), Il ritorno d'Ulisse in partia ("The Return of Ulysses to his Homeland"), 1641, and L'incoronazione di Poppea ("The Corronation of Poppea"), 1642. Monteverdi is buried at the Basilica de Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. [ALR, CBN, KTS, WAC] links

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Michael Praetorius [Schultheis; Schultze] (Creuzburg an der Werra ca. 1571-1621): German organist, composer, and theorist. As a young boy, Praetorius had to move from Creuzburg an der Werra, with his family to Torgau in 1573 because of his father's banishment due to his stand on the Augsburg Interim.
Praetorius was an remarkably prolific composer, especially considering his short life. His series, the Musae Sioniae (9 vols., 1605–1610) alone contains 1,244 choral-based works. He is remembered now mainly for his Syntagma musicum (3 vols., 1615–1619), which describes the practices of music and its instruments. His last work, a setting of Psalm 116 for five-part voices, he composed "as a farewell to myself", in anticipation of his own death. [KJB, KRB; MDN, SE, SJK; GJC] links
Girolamo Frescobaldi (September 1583-1643), Italian composer. In 1607 he went to Brussels with his patron, Guido Bentivoglio. (Although Brussels was an important musical centre in the development of Flemish keyboard music, there little evidence in his music that this influenced Frescobaldi.) He dedicated his first publication, a collection of nineteen five-part madrigals, 1608, to Bentivoglio. In 1608 he became organist at St. Peter's, Rome, where he remained until his death. [ADSB, AGP, MDN] links
Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) baptized 9 October 1585; died in Dresden, 6 November 1672, was one of the greatest German composer of the 17th century. As a choirboy, Schütz was a member of the court musical establishment in Kassel of Landgrave Moritz of Hessen-Kassel. After studying with Giovanni Gabrieli in Venice (1610–1612), at Landgrave Moritz's expense, he returned to Kassel in 1613 where he again served at Moritz's court until 1615. During 1614 he served for two months at the Electoral Court in Dresden, returning there in 1615. The second visit was supposed to be temporary, but the Elector Johann Georg I decided to keep Schütz in his employment permanently. For political reasons, Landgrave Moritz had to agree. Schütz wrote a very large amount of church music which includes settings in German and in Latin. [AGP, MDN; GJC] links

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Biagio Marini (Brescia, 5 February 1594-Venice, 1663), Italian violin virtuoso and composer. Marini received a position as violinist at San Marco, Venice, under Monteverdi, 26 April 1615. For a short time in 1620 he was in Brescia; then, 1621–1623, worked at the Court in Parma. From 1623 was in the service of the Duke of Neuburg in Wittelsbach. While in the Duke's service he travelled extensively, to Brussels, Düsseldorf, Brescia, Padua, and Venice. In 1649 returned to Milan as maestro di cappella at S. Maria della Scalla. Later he worked in Ferrara, Venice, and Vicenza.
Marini published many volumes of secular and instrumental music, including vocal monodies, psalms, and laments. He is best known for his innovative violin music. All of Marini's existing music is printed, however at least seven volumes are lost, and others are incomplete. [KJH, LF, MDN, TMC; GJC] links
Luigi Rossi (1597-1653), Italian composer, singer, and organist, was one of the last composers of the Roman opera school of the early Baroque. In 1633, Rossi became organist at S. Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Althought he continued to hold this position until his death, in 1635 he obtained a leave of absence to visit the Florentine Court. In 1641 he entered the service of Cardinal A. Barberini, in Rome, for whom he composed the opera Il palazzo incantato, two oratorios, and many cantatas. Rossi's second opera, Orfeo, on a libretto by Francesco Buti, was first performed at the French Court, Paris, 1647. He composed over 300 surviving cantatas and several operas. [KRB, LF, MDN, NEE] links
Pier Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676) was born in Crema, republic of Venice, and received his first musical instruction from his father, G.B. Caletti. He was one of the leading Venetian opera composers, composing between thirty and forty or more operas. [ALR, MLD]
Barbara Strozzi (Venice, 6 August 1619-Padua, 11 November 1677) was . After her father's death in 1652, Strozzi published five more volumes of music. Her last publication, entitled simple Arie, 1664, is the surviving evidence of her professional life. Nicolò Fontei, in the dedication of his Bizzarrie poetiche, 1635, called Strozzi "la virtuosissima cantatrice". Strozzi never married but, by 1651, had 4 children. [GRD, TKR; GJC] links

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Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687), a French composer of Italian birth, was born in Florence, Italy, 28 November 1632, and died in Paris, 22 March 1687. As Louis XIV, as personal composer to the king of France, Louis XIV, he was the most important French composer of his period, and exercised a virtual monopoly over the musical stage in France. He was influential in the development of the French Overture, with its introductory slow dotted rhythms and following fugal section, and his insistence on orchestral discipline, particularly in the matter of string bowing. [LF, PAL, SLM] links
Dietrich Buxtehude (ca. 1637-1707) was organist at the Marienkirche, Lübeck, 1668–1707. Much of Buxtehude's sacred music he composed for the Abendmusiken, public concerts following the afternoon church services in Lübeck during Advent Season. Two special Abendmusik performances were held 2 and 3 December 1705 to commemorate the death of Emperor Leopold I. Johann Pachelbel dedicated to Buxtehude and F.T. Richter (of Vienna) his Hexachordum Apollinis, a collection of six arias with variations for harpsichord or organ, published in Nuremburg, 1699. Buxtehude was buried 16 May 1707, in Lübeck's Marienkirche, alongside his father and four of his seven daughters. [DGS, KRB, MR, NEE, SLM] links
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704), Bohemian composer, 30th of May, 1672, married Maria Weiss, in Helbrunn. She was the daughter of a merchant in Salzburg, the city where von Biber became a successful composer. [DGS, TMC] links
Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713), Italian violinist and composer, was born in Fusignano, Italy. He dedicated his first published collection, the Sonate da chiesa, op. 1, 1681, to Queen Christina of Sweden. About this time he become one of her chamber musicians. Corelli composed twelve Concerti grossi, published as Op. 6 in Amsterdam, 1714.
Corelli is buried in S. Maria della Rotonda (the Pantheon), Rome. This Roman temple, constructed about 125 A.D., was converted to a Christian church in 609. It is the burial place of many artists, including Raphael and contains the tombs of the first two kings of Italy. [BW, SLL, SMR, JAS; GJC] links

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Henry Purcell (10 September 1659-14 November 1695), English composer, began his musical career as a chorister in the Chapel Royal; when his voice broke in 1673 he was appointed assistant to John Hingeston, keeper of the instruments at the Court. At the age of 18, Purcell in 1677 succeeded Matthew Locke as composer-in-ordinary to the King's violins (a string band of 24 players). In 1679 he was appointed organist at Westminister Abbey, succeeding his teacher, John Blow.
Purcell composed sacred music, including many verse anthems and full anthems, and theatre music, including music for forty-nine plays. He composed only one musical work that can be classified as a true opera (in the sense that it is sung throughout), Dido and Aeneas, probably first performed ca. 1689. In addition, he wrote extensive music scenes (some more substantial and extensive than those in Dido and Aeneas) for several semi-operas. Purcell is buried in Westminster Abbey, London. [CBN, DGS, MLD, SMR, SPR, WAC; GJC] links
Alessandro Scarlatti (Palmero 2 May 1660-Naples, 22 October 1725) is generally referred to as the founder of the Neapolitan School of eighteenth century opera. He became maestro di cappella at S. Giacomo degli Incurabili, Rome, 16 December 1678. Scarlatti composed 115 operas as well as oratorios, more than seven hundred cantatas, madrigals, concerti grossi, harpsichord music, and chamber pieces. His sacred music includes ten masses. Scarlatti two sisters and two brothers were performers, including Francesco Scarlatti (1666–ca. 1745), a violinist and composer employed in Naples. His two sons Pietro Filippo Scarlatti (1679–1750), maestro di cappella at Urbino and then Court organist at Naples, and the more famous Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) both were keyboard players and composers. [KJH, KRB, LF; NEE, SE; GJC] links

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