Giovanni Maria Nanino

Giovanni Maria Nanino

Giovanni Maria Nanino (Nanini) (* around 1543/44 in Tivoli ; † March 11, 1607 in Rome ) was an Italian composer , conductor , papal choir singer, singing and composition teacher.

biography

Nanino worked at three renowned music institutions in Rome : at Santa Maria Maggiore (approx. 1569–1575), San Luigi dei Francesi (1575–1577) and at the Cappella Pontificia , the papal chapel (1577–1607).

Nanino probably received his first musical training as a choirboy at the cathedral of his birthplace Tivoli. During this time there was a lively exchange between the musicians in Tivoli and those in the Vatican. Nanino may have already worked as a “puer cantus” in the Cappella Giulia founded by Pope Julius II , the choir of St. Peter in Rome , where a “Giovanni Maria” was recorded in January 1555 and from January to April 1558. Nanino's participation in the Cappella Giulia from September 1566 to October 1568 has been proven. In addition, he was a choir member of the church in Vallerano , where the family had moved and where his brother Giovanni Bernardino Nanino was born in 1560 .

From March 1562 onwards, Nanino was listed as a “cantore” in Cardinal Ippolito II. D'Este's account books . In this office he accompanied the cardinal to France, where Pope Pius IV. Ippolito had sent on a diplomatic mission. The connection with the influential cardinal, who belonged to the pro-French faction in Rome, is likely to have significantly promoted the career of the young Nanino. Perhaps this was the beginning of the lifelong bond between the two Nanino brothers and the French national church in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi , next to which Nanino lived. (The building was later incorporated into Palazzo Madama before being demolished for the Senate expansion in 1926-31.)

A document dated June 1569 names Nanino as Kapellmeister of the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, but due to the lack of files for the period from 1563 to 1571 it is not possible to join Nanino as Kapellmeister of S. Maria Maggiore  - an office that lasts until 1565 Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina held - to be dated exactly. Although the two composers later had a tense relationship with one another, it is conceivable that it was Palestrina herself who recommended Nanino for the Cappella Liberiana, the choir of Santa Maria Maggiore. The chapel files show regular payments to Nanino and four choirboys, for whose training, boarding and accommodation Nanino was responsible. In the summer of 1575 Nanino moved to the office of Kapellmeister of San Luigi dei Francesi , where he led the choir of eight adult singers and two to four boys' choirs.

On October 28, 1577, after passing the entrance exam, Nanino was accepted as a tenor in the choir of the renowned papal chapel, the Cappella Pontificia . In the chapel, which performed mainly in the Cappella Sistina , he remained active until his death in 1607. In addition to his duties as a singer, he also delivered his own compositions (a skill desired by the band) and took on various administrative offices: In 1596 he was the "puncturer" for recording the daily obligations, attendances and irregularities of the papal band members in the so-called Diari Sistini responsible; In 1588, 1589 and probably 1596 he was secretary to the chapel chamberlain. Particularly noteworthy is his three-time election as Kapellmeister by his papal colleague singers (1598, 1604, 1605).

In 1586 Nanino traveled to Mantua on a diplomatic mission ; further trips took him to Loreto (a traditional pilgrimage destination of the papal singers), Perugia (1589) and Ferrara (1598 in the wake of the Pope). A particularly highly developed music was cultivated there until the death of Alfonso II. D'Este in 1597. Not only nobles and travelers from all over Italy were guests of the famous “Concerto delle Donne” or “Concerto di Dame”, but also musicians like Claudio Monteverdi and Carlo Gesualdo . In addition to his official duties, Nanino was also involved in the “Compagnia dei musici di Roma”, a musicians' organization from which today's “ Accademia di Santa Cecilia ” emerged.

Nanino's tomb, which can no longer be clearly identified today, is located in the church floor in front of the Contarelli Chapel in San Luigi dei Francesi , which is famous for its three paintings by Caravaggio on the life of Saint Matthew and is still visited daily by countless tourists. In this prominent tomb, too, one can see an expression of the high esteem that Nanino enjoyed from his contemporaries and colleagues - and which stands in stark contrast to his later unfamiliarity.

Together with his younger brother Giovanni Bernardino (around 1560–1623) he was a very influential teacher, although the alleged founding of the first public music school in Rome by him and his brother has meanwhile been questioned. Among the students, some of whom he also taught together with his brother, are Felice Anerio , Gregorio and Domenico Allegri , Vincenzo Ugolini , Antonio Cifra , Domenico Massenzio , Paolo Agostini and Alessandro Costantini .

The spelling "Nanini", which is occasionally used, represents the genitive formation of the Latinized form Naninus ("des Naninus"), which in the second half of the 19th century was sometimes no longer correctly interpreted and his family name was incorrectly spelled "Nanini" instead of Nanino has been.

Works

Spiritual compositions

In addition to the undoubted influence of Palestrina on the church music (not only) Nanino, Nanino himself in turn significantly shaped the development of church music in Rome . Nanino's sacred compositions include a book with motets and individual motets in various collections, a total of at least 50 works. In the motet book published in 1586, 29 of the 32 canon mottoes are based on a cantus firmus by Costanzo Festa , which is probably unique in the history of counterpoint . Palestrina's madrigal Vestiva i colli took Nanino as a template for a musical setting. In addition, numerous hymns and canon compositions, litanies and nine lamentations , a Te Deum , Stabat mater and Magnificat each , as well as several psalm cantatas were created. Numerous canzonets and madrigals are also available as counterfactures , which means that a Latin text was subsequently added to them, and the music was rarely changed at the same time. In addition, also lauds (easier to 1,600 but very popular in Rome compositions) survived.

Secular compositions

While only a small part of the sacred compositions has been published, all of Naninos madrigals and canzonets were probably published. His secular settings are based on the popular love poetry of the time, but Nanino, especially in his first book, also chose content that was tied to current events or important personalities (e.g. Le strane voci, which deals with the French wars of religion ). Three madrigal books have survived (the first only survived in reprints from 1579, 1581, 1586) and a canonette print (1593), and other pieces appeared in collections. With 81 madrigals, which can be safely attributed to him, as well as 40 canzonets, fewer works of this kind have survived by him than by Marenzio and Giovanelli , compared with his Roman contemporaries , but more than by Palestrina , for example .

Nanino's first madrigal book in particular (c. 1571) shows conceptual and compositional innovations: These include the use of three high female voices, which, however, apparently only later became established under the influence of the “Concerto delle Donne” and Marenzio in Rome . Nanino's pieces with predominantly diatonic melodies are only briefly interrupted by chromatic passages. Unusual dissonances also appear rarely as a text expression. Thus Nanino's works essentially correspond to the style to be expected from a Roman composer of the time, which was most likely more bindingly shaped by the reforms of the Council of Trent at the courts of Pope and Cardinals than outside of Rome, not only in Ferrara , but also in Florence , Mantua or Venice were experimented with much more daring.

Editions of the compositions by Nanino

• Giovanni Maria Nanino, Il Primo Libro delle Canzonette a tre voci, Venice 1593 (Reprint: Rome 1941)
• Giovanni Maria Nanino, Fourteen Liturgical Works, ed. by R. Schuler, Madison, Wisc. 1969 (Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 5)
• I musici di Roma e il madrigale. "Dolci affetti" (1582) and "Le gioie" (1589), ed. by N. Pirrotta, Lucca 1993
• Il Primo Libro dei Madrigali, ed. by M. Pastori, Rome 2011
• Giovanni Maria Nanino, The Complete Madrigals, Middleton 2012, ed. v. C. Boenicke et al. A. Newcomb, Part 1: Il primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci (Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, 158)

literature

• Franz Xaver Haberl : Giovanni Maria Nanino. Presentation of his life and work on the basis of archival and bibliographical documents. In: Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 6 (1891), pp. 81–97
• R. Molitor: The Post-Tridentine Choral Reform in Rome. 2 vols. Leipzig 1901/02.
• R. Schuler: The Life and Liturgical Works of Giovanni Maria Nanino (1545-1607). 2 vols., Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota 1963, Ann Arbor 1963
• C. Boenicke: Giovanni Maria Nanino (1543/4 - 1607). Madrigal setting between "dolci affetti" and "dolorosi accenti". Berlin 2004.
• G. Monari, F. Vizzaccaro (eds.): Musici e istituzioni musicali a Roma e nello Stato pontificio nel tardo Rinascimento: attorno a Giovanni Maria Nanino (Atti della Giornata internazionale di studio, Tivoli, 26 ottobre 2007) Tivoli 2008.
• Christina Boenicke:  Nanino (family). In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 7 (Franco - Gretry). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2002, ISBN 3-7618-1117-9  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)

Web links

Commons : Giovanni Maria Nanino  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Sheet music and audio files by Giovanni Maria Nanino in the International Music Score Library Project
• Sheet music in the public domain by Giovanni Maria Nanino in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ C. Boenicke: Giovanni Maria Nanino (1543 / 4–1607). Madrigal setting between "dolci affetti" and "dolorosi accenti". Berlin 2004, esp. Pp. 25-61
2. ^ Robert Eitner : Biographical-bibliographical source lexicon of musicians and music scholars. Volume 7. Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig 1902, pp. 140-142 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
3. ↑ Andrea Adami da Bolsena: Osservazioni per ben regolare il coro de i cantori della Capella Pontifica . Antonio de 'Rossi alla Piazza di Ceri, Roma 1711, p. 117 ( digitized version in Google Book Search [accessed on September 13, 2018]).
4. ↑ August Reissmann: General history of music . tape 1 . Friedrich Bruckmann, Munich 1863, p. 243 f . ( Digitized in the Google Book Search [accessed on March 17, 2018]).