Alessandro Grandi (1586 – after June 1630, but in that year) was a northern Italian composer of the early Baroque era, writing in the new concertato style. Italy (Italia officially the Italian Republic, (Repubblica Italiana is located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe, and on the two largest Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 and 1750. Concertato is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a genre or a style of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody usually He was one of the most inventive, influential and popular composers of the time, probably second only to Monteverdi in northern Italy.
Life
He was probably born in Ferrara and spent the first part of his life there, likely studying with Giovanni Gabrieli at Venice, which was nearby. Ferrara is a city in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital city of the Province of Ferrara. Giovanni Gabrieli (c 1554/1557 &ndash August 12 1612 was an Italian Composer and organist. Venice ( Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venesia or Venexia) is a city in Northern Italy, the capital of the He held several posts in Ferrara as maestro di cappella at different cathedrals and academies. In 1617 he won a post at St. Mark's in Venice, during the time Monteverdi was choirmaster there. Saint Mark's Basilica ( Italian: Basilica di San Marco a Venezia) the Cathedral of Venice, is the most famous of Eventually he became Monteverdi's assistant, and during this time seems to have chosen to write works in some of the smaller forms which Monteverdi was neglecting. In 1627 he went to Bergamo, probably because he had an opportunity to be maestro di cappella at a place where he could build up the music program from scratch. Bergamo ( Bèrghem in Lombard, antiquated Wälsch-Bergen in German) is a town in Lombardy, Italy, about Most likely he met Heinrich Schütz on that composer's second visit to Italy. Heinrich Schütz (October 8 ( JC) 1585 Köstritz - November 6 1672 Dresden) was a German Composer and organist, generally regarded Unfortunately, after only three years at Bergamo, Grandi died in 1630 during an outbreak of the plague. Bubonic plague is the best-known manifestation of the bacterial disease plague, caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis (formerly known as
Works
Most of his music is vocal with instrumental accompaniment. Stylistically, his early music is similar to that of Giovanni Gabrieli, with alternating short passages of greatly contrasting rhythms and texture; however he usually wrote for smaller forces. Giovanni Gabrieli (c 1554/1557 &ndash August 12 1612 was an Italian Composer and organist. Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement symmetry" is the variation of the length and accentuation of In Music, texture is the overall quality of sound of a piece, most often indicated by the number of voices in the music and by the relationship between Most of his early compositions are motets in the concertato style: some are duets and trios, an innovation in motet writing, which usually involved larger groups. In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions Concertato is a term in early Baroque music referring to either a genre or a style of music in which groups of instruments or voices share a melody usually Grandi was one of the few composers who continued to write involved vocal polyphony over the basso continuo right after its introduction--most composers using the continuo in the first decades of the 17th century wrote monodies, or preferred more homophonic textures. In Music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent Melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice ( Monophony As a means of recording the passage of Time, the 17th Century was that Century which lasted from 1601 - 1700 in the Gregorian calendar In Poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death In Music, homophony (hoʊˈmɒfəni from Greek "homófonos" where ομοιο = the same and φωνή = a sound tone is a texture in which two or more
Grandi experimented with extreme emotionalism with some of his music, with chromaticism, ornament and affectation; while harmonically he was not as adventurous as Gesualdo, he was connected to the larger tradition, and thus his works were almost as influential as Monteverdi's. In Music, chromaticism is a Compositional technique interspersing the primary Diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the Chromatic For other uses of the term see Ornament In Architecture, ornament is a decorative detail used to embellish parts of a building or interior This article is about the composer for the Italian town see Gesualdo (town. He ceaselessly innovated, writing monodies with instruments such as violins, and in a sectional form with repeating parts for instruments only--an idea which would develop into the ritornello. The violin is a bowed String instrument with four strings usually tuned in Perfect fifths It is the smallest and highest-pitched member In Baroque music, ritornello was the word for a recurring passage for Orchestra in the first or final movement of a Solo concerto or Aria The music of Grandi shows a link between the concertato style which began the Baroque era, and the form of the cantata which culminated in the work of J.S. Bach. A cantata (derived from the Italian word 'cantare' meaning 'to sing' is a vocal composition with an instrumental Accompaniment and often WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section.2 This article is written in British English including maximised use of "-ise"
Grandi was one of the most popular composers of his day; his works were published throughout Italy, Germany and the Low Countries, and continued to be reprinted long after his death. The Low Countries, the historical region of de Nederlanden, are the countries on low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt He wrote motets, psalm settings, madrigals, as well as some of the earliest compositions to be called "cantata. A madrigal is a type of Secular vocal music composition written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras A cantata (derived from the Italian word 'cantare' meaning 'to sing' is a vocal composition with an instrumental Accompaniment and often "
Sources
- Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era. Manfred Bukofzer ( March 27, 1910 &ndash December 7, 1955) was a German - American Musicologist and humanist New York, W. W. Norton & Co. , 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
- Articles "Alessandro Grandi," "Monody," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd. , 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
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