Francesco Soriano

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Francesco Soriano

Francesco Soriano (* 1548 or 1549 in Soriano nel Cimino near Viterbo ; † July 19, 1621 in Rome ) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance . He was an important member of the Roman School in the first generation after Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina .

Live and act

As a boy, Francesco Soriano studied at the Lateran Basilica in Rome with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, among others, was ordained a priest in the 1570s, and from 1580 on he was Maestro di cappella in San Luigi dei Francesi , also in Rome. In 1581 he moved to Mantua , where he accepted a position at the court of the Gonzagas ; as early as 1586 he returned to Rome, where he worked the rest of his life as choirmaster in three different churches, including as director of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's Basilica . In 1620 he went into retirement.

Soriano worked with Felice Anerio in the context of the Counter Reformation on the revision of the Roman Gradual ( Editio Medicaea ); this work was not - as is often assumed - or at least not largely carried out by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.

Francesco Soriano's music is stylistically similar to that of Palestrina, but has some influences from the development that was prevalent around the turn of the century. He adopted an antiphonal style, maintaining the soft polyphonic style of Palestrina, and he had a preference for a homophonic composition technique that made it easier for the listener to understand a sung text.

He wrote masses , motets (some for eight voices), psalms (a collection published in Venice in 1616 is written for twelve voices and basso continuo ), versions of the Passion based on all four evangelists, Marian antiphons, and several books of madrigals . The versions of his Passions are important forerunners of the more well-known versions from the Baroque period, such as by Johann Sebastian Bach ; they are composed in a reserved but dramatic style and are descriptive in character. In a sense they represent the forerunner of the Baroque oratorio , which strings together solo singing, choral singing and instrumental pieces, but are closer in style to Palestrina than to Baroque compositions.

literature

  • Francesco Soriano . In: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie . Macmillan Publishers, London 1980, ISBN 1-56159-174-2 .
  • Gustave Reese : Music in the Renaissance . WW Norton & Co., New York 1954, ISBN 0-393-09530-4 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Soriano, Francesco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer of the late Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH 1548 or 1549
PLACE OF BIRTH Soriano nel Cimino near Viterbo
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 1621
Place of death Rome