Massimo Troiano (died after April 1570) was an Italian Renaissance composer, poet, and a brief, but vivid chronicler of life at the court of Bavaria's ruler, Duke Albrecht V in the late 1560s, the only period in which Troiano is known to history.
Massimo Troiano (died after April 1570) was an Italian Renaissance composer, poet, and a brief, but vivid chronicler of life at the court of Bavaria's ruler, Duke Albrecht V in the late 1560s, the only period in which Troiano is known to history.
Nothing is known of Troiano's early life other than that he was from the vicinity of Naples, possibly from the town of Corduba, since in his first and second books of canzoni he calls himself "Massimo Troiano di Corduba da Napoli".
Only his activities during the three-year span of 1567-70 are documented, but those in some detail. In 1567 he published in Treviso a book of canzoni, secular songs on his own verse. By early 1568 he was in Munich, in the service of the House of Wittelsbach, singing in the Bavarian Hofkapelle under the direction of Orlande de Lassus. He traveled between Munich and Venice at least twice, with one extended stay in Venice in 1569, where he waited for the Duke of Bavaria to send him money and an acceptance letter for continued service. He remained in Munich until Easter 1570, when he was accused of murdering one of his musical colleagues, and fled. A warrant was issued for his arrest, but he was never found, and there is no known documentation of his activity after that time.
Another Troiano, Giovanni, appeared in Rome in 1571, a few months after Massimo's disappearance from Munich. There is no evidence to indicate whether Giovanni was related to Massimo, but they were both composers of secular vocal music. Giovanni lived for an additional half-century, until 1622.
While Massimo Troiano published four books of secular songs (in three collections—in 1567, 1568 and 1570), he is best known for having provided in his Dialoghi a vivid and colorful description of life in the Bavarian court and especially the lavish marriage ceremony for the Munich wedding of Duke Wilhelm V and Renée of Lorraine. Modern scholars consider Troiano to be an unreliable (since he was being paid to portray the court in the most positive terms), but useful witness. [1]
Troiano's Dialoghi was published in Munich in 1568, Venice in 1569 and appeared shortly thereafter in a Spanish translation. The book is the most complete description of how Orlande de Lassus produced and staged his musical performances, and contains accounts of both instrumental and vocal music. "The singers [serve] every morning at High Mass and at Vespers on Saturdays and the vigils of the feasts of obligation. The wind instruments are played on Sundays, and on feast days at Mass and at Vespers in company with the singers." [2] Troiano also gives unusually detailed descriptions of how Mass was celebrated and which parts were sung polyphonically —all important information in reconstructing Renaissance performance practice. Troiano also left an account of the 1567 performance of the largest polyphonic composition of the Renaissance, the 40- and 60-voice Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno by Alessandro Striggio.
Troiano's music was mostly in the light Neapolitan style of the canzon villanesca alla napoletana, sometimes called simply "canzonettas", three-part vocal compositions related to madrigals but more formulaic in character, although in Troiano's hands, along with his compatriot Giovanni Leonardo Primavera, they began to approach the artistic world of the madrigal. All of his books of canzonette he published in Venice, and they show aspects both of Neapolitan and contemporary Venetian style. Most of the verse he likely wrote himself, and he sometimes writes nostalgically of his native Naples, for which he longed. [3]
Orlande de Lassus was a composer of the late Renaissance, chief representative of the mature polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school, and considered to be one of the three most famous and influential musicians in Europe at the end of the 16th century.
Cipriano de Rore was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish composers after Josquin des Prez who went to live and work in Italy, but he was one of the most prominent composers of madrigals in the middle of the 16th century. His experimental, chromatic, and highly expressive style had a decisive influence on the subsequent development of that secular music form.
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition of the Renaissance and early Baroque (1600–1750) eras. The polyphonic madrigal is unaccompanied, and the number of voices varies from two to eight, but usually features three to six voices, whilst the metre of the madrigal varies between two or three tercets, followed by one or two couplets. Unlike the verse-repeating strophic forms sung to the same music, most madrigals are through-composed, featuring different music for each stanza of lyrics, whereby the composer expresses the emotions contained in each line and in single words of the poem being sung.
In music, a villanella is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century. It first appeared in Naples, and influenced the later canzonetta, and from there also influenced the madrigal.
Gioseffo Guami was an Italian composer, organist, violinist and singer of the late Renaissance Venetian School. He was a prolific composer of madrigals and instrumental music, and was renowned as one of the finest organists in Italy in the late 16th century; he was also the principal teacher of Adriano Banchieri.
The Lagrime di San Pietro is a cycle of 20 madrigals and a concluding motet by the late Renaissance composer Orlande de Lassus. Written in 1594 for seven voices, it is structured as three sequences of seven compositions. The Lagrime was to be Lassus’ last composition: he dedicated it to Pope Clement VIII on May 24, 1594, three weeks before his death, and it was published in Munich the next year.
Renata of Lorraine was by birth a member of the House of Lorraine and by marriage Duchess of Bavaria.
This is a list of notable events in music that took place in 1555.
Francisco Leontaritis or Francesco Londarit or Francesco Londarit, Franciscus Londariti, Leondaryti, Londaretus, Londaratus or Londaritus (1518-1572) was a Greek composer, singer and hymnographer from today's Heraklion of the Venetian-dominated Crete (Candia) at the Renaissance age. He is considered by many as the father of modern Greek classical music.
Giovanni Ferretti was an Italian composer of the Renaissance, best known for his secular music. He was important in the development of the lighter kind of madrigal current in the 1570s related to the villanella, and was influential as far away as England.
Simon Boyleau was a French composer of the Renaissance, active in northern Italy. A prolific composer of madrigals as well as sacred music, he was closely connected with the court of Marguerite of Savoy. He was also the earliest documented choirmaster at the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso in Milan.
Giulio Fiesco was an Italian composer of the Renaissance, active in Ferrara, known for his madrigals. He was the first composer to set the poetry of Giovanni Battista Guarini, the most often-set poet by madrigalists of the late 16th century, and was an important court composer for the rich musical establishment of the Este family in Ferrara.
Francesco Portinaro was an Italian composer and humanist of the Renaissance, active both in northern Italy and in Rome. He was closely associated with the Ferrarese Este family, worked for several humanistic Renaissance academies, and was well known as a composer of madrigals and dialogues.
Nicolao Dorati was an Italian composer and trombone player of the Renaissance, active in Lucca. Although he was primarily an instrumentalist, all of his published music is vocal, and consists mainly of madrigals.
