Pomponio Nenna (baptized 13 June 1556 – before 22 October 1613) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composer of the
Renaissance Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given the gradually adopted "Renaissance" characteristics: musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.- Style and trends :The...
. He is mainly remembered for his
madrigalA madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six...
s, which were influenced by
GesualdoCarlo Gesualdo, known as Gesualdo da Venosa , Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was an Italian music composer, lutenist and nobleman of the late Renaissance...
.
He was born in
BariBari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
, in the southeastern extremity of Italy. His father was a city official of Bari, and was the author of a book on nobility; he had been given the "Order of the Golden Spur" by Emperor
Charles VCharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
in 1530.
Most likely he studied with Stefano Felis in Bari.
Pomponio Nenna (baptized 13 June 1556 – before 22 October 1613) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composer of the
Renaissance Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given the gradually adopted "Renaissance" characteristics: musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.- Style and trends :The...
. He is mainly remembered for his
madrigalA madrigal is a type of secular vocal music composition, written during the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Throughout most of its history it was polyphonic and unaccompanied by instruments, with the number of voices varying from two to eight, but most frequently three to six...
s, which were influenced by
GesualdoCarlo Gesualdo, known as Gesualdo da Venosa , Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was an Italian music composer, lutenist and nobleman of the late Renaissance...
.
Life
He was born in
BariBari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...
, in the southeastern extremity of Italy. His father was a city official of Bari, and was the author of a book on nobility; he had been given the "Order of the Golden Spur" by Emperor
Charles VCharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
in 1530.
Most likely he studied with Stefano Felis in Bari. In 1574 he published his first music, four villanellas which were published in collections edited by Giovanni Jacopo de Antiquis, who may also have been a teacher of his. In 1582 Nenna dedicated his first book of madrigals to Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of
AndriaAndria may refer to:*Alfonso Andria, , an Italian politician*Andria , a comedic play by Terence*Andria, Italy, a city in Apulia, Italy*Roman Catholic Diocese of Andria, a Roman Catholic diocese in Italy...
, near Bari; Fabrizio had nominated Nenna to be his successor. Fabrizio Carafa is also the man murdered by Gesualdo, in bed with Gesualdo's wife, in one of music history's most famous murders (1590). Curiously, Nenna later became friends with Gesualdo, and dedicated music to him. Then again Gesualdo was Prince of
VenosaVenosa is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, in the Vulture area. It is bounded by the comuni of Barile, Ginestra, Lavello, Maschito, Montemilone, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rapolla and Spinazzola.-Ancient:...
and it may have been advisable for a competing composer to stay in his good graces.
Nenna worked for Gesualdo between 1594 and 1599, at which time it was once assumed that Gesualdo, more or less an amateur composer, studied with Nenna—but more recent musicological study suggests that the influence may have gone the other way, since Nenna did more borrowing from Gesualdo than the reverse.
Nenna's activities in the first decade of the 17th century are obscure, but he most likely was in
NaplesNaples in Italy, is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples. The city is known for its rich history, art, culture, architecture, music and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,800 years old...
from 1606 to 1607 and in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
in 1608. A memorial dedication to Nenna on a book of madrigals by Nicola Tortamano in 1613 establishes the latest date at which he could have died. Most likely he died in Rome.
Music and influence
Nenna followed the stylistic trends of the time. He borrowed some ideas from
Giulio CacciniGiulio Caccini was an Italian composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He was one of the founders of the genre of opera, and one of the single most influential creators of the new Baroque style...
, the famous
FlorentineFlorence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence...
, one of the founders of
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
; he certainly borrowed from Gesualdo; but his innovations were of a minor order compared to the progressive nature of Caccini and the frankly avant-garde,
manneristMannerism is a period of European art that emerged from the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520. It lasted until about 1580 in Italy, when a more Baroque style began to replace it, but Northern Mannerism continued into the early 17th century throughout much of Europe...
style of Gesualdo. Some of Nenna's madrigals also borrow the antiphonal style of
Andrea GabrieliAndrea Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as...
, an unusual feature, for influences of the polychoral style are rare in the madrigal literature.
Nenna wrote eight books of madrigals, of which the second and third are lost. He also wrote sacred music, including
TenebraeTenebrae may refer to:* Tenebrae, a Christian worship service held during Holy Week * Tenebrae , a horror film by Dario Argento* Tenebrae , soundtrack album for the Dario Argento film...
responsories and a psalm setting.
His eighth book of madrigals went through several printings in the 17th century, and was widely distributed.