Adriano Banchieri was an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

, music theorist

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

, organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

ist and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 of the late Renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 and early Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna

Bologna

Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...

.

Biography

He was born and died in Bologna. In 1587 he became a monk of the Benedictine order, taking his vows in 1590, and changing his name to Adriano (from Tommaso). One of his teachers at the monastery was Gioseffo Guami

Gioseffo Guami

Gioseffo Guami was an Italian composer, organist, violinist and singer of the late Renaissance Venetian School...

, who had a strong influence on his style.

Like Orazio Vecchi

Orazio Vecchi

Orazio Vecchi was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. He is most famous for his madrigal comedies, particularly L'Amfiparnaso.- Life :...

 he was interested in converting the madrigal

Madrigal (music)

A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....

 to dramatic purposes. Specifically, he was one of the developers of a form called "madrigal comedy

Madrigal comedy

Madrigal comedy is a term for a kind of entertainment music of the late 16th century in Italy, in which groups of related, generally a cappella madrigals were sung consecutively, generally telling a story, and sometimes having a loose dramatic plot. It is an important element in the origins of opera...

" — unstaged but dramatic collections of madrigals which, when sung consecutively, told a story. Formerly, madrigal comedy was considered to be one of the important precursors to opera, but most music scholars now see it as a separate development, part of a general interest in Italy at the time in creating musico-dramatic forms. In addition, he was an important composer of canzonetta

Canzonetta

In music, a canzonetta was a popular Italian secular vocal composition which originated around 1560...

s, a lighter and hugely popular alternative to the madrigal in the late 16th century.

Banchieri disapproved of the monodists

Monody

In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....

 with all their revolutionary harmonic tendencies, about which he expressed himself vigorously in his Moderna Practica Musicale (1613), while systematizing the legitimate use of the monodic art of figured bass

Figured bass

Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...

.

In several editions beginning in 1605 (reprinted at least six times before 1638), Banchieri published a series of organ

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

 works entitled l'Organo suonarino.

Banchieri's last publication was the Trattenimenti da villa of 1630. According to Farahat he wrote five madrigal comedies between 1598 and 1628 with "plot and character development", starting with La pazzia senile of 1598, the last of them La saviezza giovenile.

Media

External links

• Adriano Banchieri, biographie de CInzia Zotti.
• Contraponto bestiale alla mente (PDF - original version at classicaland.com)
• Original texts of Bertoldino and Caccasenno
• Audio of Six Sonatas played on a virtual organ