Luca Marenzio

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Luca Marenzio

Luca Marenzio (born October 18, 1553 or 1554 in Coccaglio , Province of Brescia , † August 22, 1599 in Rome ) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance .

Life

Luca Marenzio was probably a choirboy at Brescia Cathedral , whose chapel was directed by Giovanni Contino (around 1513–1574) from 1565 to 1567 . Perhaps this was his teacher too. Marenzio found his first job in Rome with Cardinal Cristoforo Madruzzo († 1578); then he entered the service of Cardinal Luigi d'Este (brother of the Duke of Ferrara , Alfonso II. d'Este ), who died in 1586. During this time he published his first collections of madrigals and possibly had contact with the court of Ferrara. His efforts to become the conductor at the ducal chapel of Mantua were unsuccessful, so in 1588 he went to the court of Florence . At the festivities there for the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando I de 'Medici with Christine von Lorraine in 1589, he was involved as a composer (second and third intermedia for the comedy La pellegrina by G. Bargagli, see Intermedien für La pellegrina ) and as a singer . In the autumn of that year Marenzio returned to Rome, where he was a member of the Vertuosa Compagnia dei Musici and received the protection of Prince Virginio Orsini , Cardinal Cinzio Aldobrandini and even Pope Clement VIII . In 1596 he stayed at the court of King Sigismund of Poland in Warsaw ; then he is attested in 1598 in Venice and again in 1599 in Rome, where he died in the same year. His grave is in San Lorenzo in Lucina .

meaning

The numerous reprints of Marenzio's works testify to the fame he enjoyed in various musical circles in Italy and other European countries, and make clear his great influence on the composers of his time and immediate posterity. Particularly noteworthy here are Claudio Monteverdi in Italy , Hans Leo Haßler , Heinrich Schütz and Johann Hermann Schein in Germany, John Wilbye , Thomas Weelkes and John Dowland in England , who tried to study with Marenzio in Rome in 1595, found a direct encounter but not held, yet both corresponded with each other. In England, twenty madrigals were republished in English in 1580 (RISM 1590/29). His works were popular long after Marenzio's death; around 1650, the Venetian publisher Alessandro Vincenzi listed almost all madrigal books and Villanelles in his catalog.

With Don Carlo Gesualdo and Monteverdi, according to Alfred Einstein , Marenzio was one of the masters of the madrigal in the late 16th century. In the tradition of Cyprian de Rore (1516–1565) and Giovanni Gabrieli (1557–1612), his madrigals are characterized by the elegance of the melody, the clarity and balance of the rhythm and a lyrical attitude of great colourfulness and delicatezza . Marenzio knows how to alternate learned counterpoint with calm, homorhythmically declaimed sections, and carefully takes into account the prosody of the words, especially in the madrigals, which date from the time after the Camerata Fiorentina . His madrigal art has earned him the nickname of più dolce cigno d'Italia . Marenzio's special attention is given to the musical expression of the meaning and affect of the texts (by Francesco Petrarca , Jacopo Sannazaro , Torquato Tasso and Giovanni Battista Guarini ), among other things with the help of the chromatic , which is less bold than in Don Carlo Gesualdo di Venosa. Marenzio is also economical in the use of musically descriptive means.

Marenzio's Villanelles are characterized by the freshness, elegance and immediacy of their musical language. The two intermedia from 1589 deal with the rivalry between the Muses and the Pierids as well as Apollo's victory over the dragon Python . A short, instrumental sinfonia and seven polyphonic vocal movements on texts by Ottavio Rinuccini have been preserved . These are accompanied by instruments and range from three voices to three choirs (one of which has 18 voices). They show a homorhythmic sentence style that gives the text a strong declamatory and dramatic profile. In contrast, an intermedium Il combattimento d'Apolline col serpente (Apollo's fight with the snake), which he composed and performed in 1585, is still entirely in the traditional madrigal style. In Marenzio's church music works, the Roman Palestrina tradition and expressive Venetian elements are equally effective.

The Brescia State Conservatory has been named after him since 1993.

Works (selection)

  • Madrigals for 4 voices (Rome 1585)
  • Madrigals for 4 to 6 voices (Venice 1588)
  • 9 books madrigals for 5 voices (Venice 1580, 1581, 1582, 1584, 1585, 1594, 1595, 1598 and 1599)
  • 6 books madrigals for 6 voices (Venice 1581, 1584, 1585, 1587, 1591 and 1595)
  • Madrigali spirituali for 6 voices (Rome 1584, expanded Nuremberg 1610)
  • 5 books of Villanelles and Canzonets for 3 voices (Venice 1584, 1585, 1585, 1587 and 1587); a selection from it with German texts, edited by Valentin Haussmann (Nuremberg 1606)
  • Numerous madrigals in around 100 collective prints from 1577 to 1627, several also in printed lute tablatures from the 16th century
  • Motets for 4 voices (Rome 1585)
  • Sacrae cantiones for 5 to 7 voices and basso continuo (posthumously Venice 1616)
  • Intermedio II. And III. from 1589, on the comedy La pellegrina , cf. Intermedia for La pellegrina , listed in RISM 1591/7.

literature

  • Denis Arnold: Marenzio. London 1965.
  • Marco Bizzarini, James Michael Chater: Luca Marenzio: The Career of a Musician Between the Renaissance and the Counter-Reformation . Ashgate Publishing Limited, Aldershot / England 2003.
  • James Chater: Fonti poetichi dei madrigali di Luca Marenzio. In: Rivista Italiana di Musicologia. 13, 1978.
  • Walther Dürr : Studies on rhythm and meter in the Italian madrigal, especially with Luca Marenzio . (Dissertation) Tübingen 1956
  • Alfred Einstein: Luca Marenzio, Complete Works. 1st volume: Madrigals for 5 voices. Book I-III. 2nd volume: Madrigals for 5 voices. Book IV – VI. Publications of early music, vol. IV, 1 u. VI, 2, Leipzig 1929-1931.
  • Hans Engel : Luca Marenzio. Florence 1956.
  • Paolo Fabbri:  Marenzio (Marenzi), Luca. In: Mario Caravale (ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 70:  Marcora – Marsilio. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 2007, pp. 35-42.
  • Franz Xaver Haberl: Luca Marenzio, a bio-bibliographical sketch . In: Church Music Yearbook. 15, 1900.
  • Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 5: Köth - Mystical Chord. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3 .
  • Bernhard Janz:  Marenzio, Luca. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 11 (Lesage - Menuhin). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2004, ISBN 3-7618-1121-7  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  • Steven Ledbetter: Luca Marenzio. New Biographical Findings. 1971 (Dissertation. New York University).
  • Steven Ledbetter: Marenzio's Early Career. In: Journal of the American Musicological Society. 32, 1979.
  • Steven Ledbetter, Roland Jackson: Marenzio. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 20 volumes. Volume XI. London 1980.
  • Bernhard Meier, Roland Jackson: Luca Marenzio; Opera omnia. Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1976-2000.
  • Bernhard Meier: On the use of the modes at Marenzio. In: Archives for Musicology . 38, 1981.
  • Marenzio . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 11, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 229.
  • Walter Wilson Wade: The Sacred Style of Luca Marenzio as Represented in His Four-Part Motets. 2 volumes. Evanston 1959 (PhD thesis. Northwestern University).

Web links

Commons : Luca Marenzio  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Alfred Einstein: in The Italian Madrigal , (Princeton, 1932)
  2. ↑ Wolfgang Lempfried The Florentine Intermedien of 1589 (1986)
personal data
SURNAME Marenzio, Luca
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Marentio, Luca
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian composer
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1553 or 1554
PLACE OF BIRTH Coccaglio , Province of Brescia
DATE OF DEATH August 22, 1599
Place of death Rome