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Giovanni Picchi (1571 or 1572 – 17 May 1643) was an Italian composer,
organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational ...
,
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can re ...
nist, and
harpsichord A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
ist of the early
Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...
era. He was a late follower of the Venetian School, and was influential in the development and differentiation of instrumental forms which were just beginning to appear, such as the
sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''canta ...
and the ensemble
canzona The canzona is an Italian musical form derived from the Franco-Flemish and Parisian chansons, and during Giovanni Gabrieli's lifetime was frequently spelled canzona, though both earlier and later the singular was spelled either canzon or canzone ...
; in addition he was the only Venetian of his time to write dance music for harpsichord.


Life

Little is known about Picchi's early life, but his birthdate (1571 or 1572) can be inferred from his death record which states that he was 71 when he died on 17 May 1643. The earliest documentary evidence pertaining to him, unusually enough, is a picture: he appears as a
lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lute" can re ...
nist on the title page of a 1600 dance manual by
Fabritio Caroso Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta (1526/1535 – 1605/1620) was an Italian Renaissance dancing master and a composer or transcriber of dance music. His dance manual ''Il Ballarino'' was published in 1581, with a subsequent edition, significantly dif ...
(''Nobilità di dame''). Sometime before February 1607 he was hired as organist at the Venetian church of the Frari, and from 1623 to his death he was also organist at the
confraternity A confraternity ( es, cofradía; pt, confraria) is generally a Christian voluntary association of laypeople created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety, and approved by the Church hierarchy. They are most ...
Scuola di San Rocco, the most prestigious and wealthy of all the Venetian confraternities. In 1624 he applied for the position of second organist at St. Mark's, but Giovanni Pietro Berti was chosen instead. He was a close contemporary of Monteverdi, being born four years later and dying six months earlier than the more renowned composer.


Music and influence

Of Picchi's music, mostly instrumental music survives. One harpsichord ''
toccata Toccata (from Italian ''toccare'', literally, "to touch", with "toccata" being the action of touching) is a virtuoso piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument featuring fast-moving, lightly fingered or otherwise virt ...
'' is included in the ''
Fitzwilliam Virginal Book The ''Fitzwilliam Virginal Book'' is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who beque ...
'' (how it got there is not known – very little Italian music is included in that English collection); three ''passamezzos'' survive in a manuscript from
Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. Th ...
; and in 1619 he published a collection of harpsichord dances, ''Intavolatura di balli d'arpicordo''. In addition, he published a collection of 19 ensemble ''canzonas'' in 1625, ''Canzoni da sonar''. A sole motet survives in Ghirlanda sacra 1625. His harpsichord dances are of three types: dances in triple meter, dances in triple meter paired with '' saltarellos,'' and pieces which use a
ground bass In music, an ostinato (; derived from Italian word for ''stubborn'', compare English ''obstinate'') is a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical voice, frequently in the same pitch. Well-known ostinato-based pieces includ ...
. Most of the works with ground bass use some type of ''
romanesca Romanesca is a melodic-harmonic formula popular from the mid–16th to early–17th centuries that was used as an aria formula for singing poetry and as a subject for instrumental variation. The pattern, which is found in an endless collection of ...
'' pattern, consisting of a line descending by fourth, rising by step, then descending again by fourth or fifth, rising by step, and so forth (the Pachelbel
Canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western can ...
, probably written several decades after Picchi's death, is probably the most famous example of variations over a ''romanesca'' bass). Within his ensemble ''canzonas,'' Picchi worked to differentiate several types of instrumental writing which were critically important to later forms such as the
concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The ty ...
. In particular, he used well-defined concertino,
ritornello A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. Early history The earliest use of the term "ritornello" in music referred to the final lines of a fourteenth-century madrigal, which were ...
, and
cadenza In music, a cadenza (from it, cadenza, link=no , meaning cadence; plural, ''cadenze'' ) is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and oft ...
s in his ensemble music, following and further developing a practice initiated in the music of
Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (c. 1554/1557 – 12 August 1612) was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift f ...
and the other composers of his generation. His writing for concertino groups was probably the most innovative aspect of his style, and foreshadowed the work of composers in the middle Baroque such as Corelli. Picchi used both sequential variation and echo effects, and scored for a variety of instruments including
violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regula ...
s,
bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuos ...
s, recorders and
trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibra ...
s, often in the same piece. Picchi seems to have used the terms ''canzona'' and ''sonata'' interchangeably, sometimes calling a piece "canzona" in the score and "sonata" in the part book; the differentiation of these forms was only just beginning in the early 17th century.


Media


References

* Eleanor Selfridge-Field, ''Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi.'' New York,
Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...
, 1994. * Howard Ferguson: "Giovanni Picchi", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 9, 2005)
(subscription access)


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Picchi, Giovanni 1570s births 1643 deaths Year of birth uncertain Place of birth unknown Date of death unknown Place of death unknown 17th-century Italian composers 18th-century Italian composers Renaissance composers Italian Baroque composers Italian male classical composers Venetian School (music) composers 17th-century male musicians