Francesco Rovigo

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Francesco Rovigo (* around 1541 probably in Mantua ; † October 7, 1597 in Mantua) was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance who worked in Mantua and Graz .

Live and act

Francesco Rovigo received extensive musical training at a young age. Early on he came into contact with the ducal court of Guglielmo Gonzaga . From 1570 he financed a two and a half year long study in Venice , mainly with Claudio Merulo , a renowned composer of the Venetian School . From 1573 he lived again in Mantua; the hymns he composed were performed in the local church of Santa Barbara , the ducal chapel of the Gonzaga family; these hymns have not survived. In 1577 the composer got a permanent position as organist in Mantua.

Francesco Rovigo took over the post of organist at the court of Archduke Charles II in Graz on May 1, 1582, mainly because of the high salary of 25 florins ; In addition, he had the task of teaching the Duke's children, but also the musicians of the Munich court, to play instruments. There have been several attempts from Mantua to bring Rovigo back. After the Archduke's death in 1590, Wilhelm V of Bavaria tried several times to recruit Rovigo for his court. However, the composer did not respond to this, returned to Mantua and resumed his previous service, in particular his organist office, at the ducal chapel of Santa Barbara. Here he also spent his other years at the court of the music-loving Gonzaga family and found himself in the company of such famous poets and composers as Alessandro Striggio the Younger , Giaches de Wert , Benedetto Pallavicino , Francesco Soriano , Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi and Claudio Monteverdi . Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga made Rovigo court composer shortly after his return. In 1591 he and Giaches de Wert were commissioned to compose the music for a planned performance of the shepherd's play "Il pastor fido" by Gian Battista Guarini . Here a singer from the Mantuan court, Evangelista Campagnolo, was supposed to play the role of Silvio. However, the work was never performed. The Gonzaga ducal family gave the composer Gastoldi a separate commission to compose the same text, and some choirs from it are included in his madrigal books. Claudio Monteverdi's letters show that he was somewhat hostile to Pallavicino, but that he did appreciate Rovigo: in a letter dated November 28, 1601, he indicated that Rovigo's position was privileged at court. Rovigo died in Mantua at the age of 56 and was buried in the crypt of Santa Barbara, near the grave of Giaches de Wert, who had died a year earlier.

meaning

Francesco Rovigo enjoyed extraordinary esteem both from his employers and from his music colleagues. In Graz he was the highest paid member of the band for years. His predominantly church music works are written in a conservative, strictly imitative style. In his masses he used both liturgical cantus firmi and Gregorian motifs. His eight-part, partly double-choir motet “Laudate Dominum in sanctis ejus”, on the other hand, shows a progressive composer. Only a few of his madrigals have survived, but have been included in several well-known anthologies ; in them, chromatic voice guides are rare and thus point back more to an earlier stylistic ideal; yet they were widespread in their day. The madrigal "Ardi sí, ma non t'amo" is an exception, in which it anticipates elements of monody with its exalted upper part . Only Rovigo's instrumental zones are extraordinarily progressive in the musical historical sense .

Works

A detailed list of works and sources can be found in MA Fink's dissertation 1977, pp. 196–207, see literature.

  • Sacred vocal music
    • Missa dominicalis for five voices, Milan 1592
    • Four further masses with five voices each
    • Passio secundum Lucam to five voices
    • Ad tertiam psalmus to four voices
    • Mass for twelve voices
    • Motet of eight voices
    • Magnificat to six votes
    • Two litanies with four or six voices
    • Another Magnificat with six votes
  • Secular vocal music
    • Madrigali for five votes, Liber 1 , Venice 1581
    • Madrigal for six voices in “Il lauro verde”, Ferrara 1583
    • Canzona for three voices in “Il secondo libro delle canzoni”, Venice 1584
    • Two madrigals with five voices each in “Sdegnosi armori”, Munich 1585
    • Madrigal for five voices in “L'amorosa caccia”, Venice 1588
    • Intabulation in “Flores musicae”, Heidelberg 1600
  • Instrumental music
    • Canzone for four voices, in: Francesco Rognoni Taeggio , “Canzoni francese”, Milan 1608
    • Seven canzons with four to eight voices in “Partitura delle canzoni da suonare”, Milan around 1613
    • Toccata for keyboard instrument
  • Lost works
    • Canzonets for four voices, including works by Trofeo , mentioned in MishiatiI
    • Canzonettes per sonar with four voices (printed), possibly transcriptions of the canzonettes with four voices, mentioned in MishiatiI
    • Hymns performed in 1573.

Literature (selection)

  • Alfred Einstein: The Italian Madrigal , three volumes, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press 1949, ISBN 0-691-09112-9
  • Gustave Reese: Music in the Renaissance , New York, WW Norton & Co. 1954, ISBN 0-393-09530-4
  • H. Federhofer: Musician and musician at the Graz Habsburg court of the Archdukes Karl and Ferdinand of Inner Austria (1564–1619) , Mainz 1967
  • MA Fink: The Life and Mantuan Masses of Francesco Rovigo (1541 / 42–1597) , dissertation at Los Angeles University 1977
  • I. Fenlon: Music and Patronage in Sixteenth-Century Mantua , 2 volumes, Cambridge and others 1980, 1982
  • Allan W. Atlas: Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400–1600 , New York, WW Norton & Co. 1998, ISBN 0-393-97169-4
  • E. Škulj: Hrenove korne knjige (The choir books of [Bishop Thomas] Hren), Ljubljana 2001.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Christian Bettels: Rovigo, Francesco , in: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.), The Music in Past and Present , second edition, personal section, Volume 14 (Ric-Schön), Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618- 1134-9 , columns 561-562
  2. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 21, McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
personal data
SURNAME Rovigo, Francesco
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rovigo, Francescino; Ruigo, Francesco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian Renaissance composer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1541
PLACE OF BIRTH Mantua
DATE OF DEATH October 7, 1597
Place of death Mantua