Ippolito Ciera ( fl. 1546–1561) was an Italian composer of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

, active at

Treviso Treviso ( , ; vec, Trevixo) is a city and '' comune'' in the Veneto region of northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Treviso and the municipality has 84,669 inhabitants (as of September 2017). Some 3,000 live within the Ven ...

and

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

. Little is yet known about his life, for neither his biography nor his works have yet been the subject of a scholarly study. He was a Dominican friar and sang at Treviso Cathedral: the earliest documentary record of his life is a payment in 1546 for his salary there. In addition to singing, he taught music to the novices at the convent of San Nicolò. By 1561, he had become ''maestro di cappella'', the choirmaster, at the church of San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice, a much more prestigious position, and incidentally in one of the musical centers of Europe. He probably knew

Adrian Willaert Adrian Willaert ( – 7 December 1562) was a Flemish composer of High Renaissance music. Mainly active in Italy, he was the founder of the Venetian School. He was one of the most representative members of the generation of northern composers ...

, the founder of the Venetian School, and may have studied with him, as did many of the musicians in Venice at that time; his veneration for the elder master is shown in a laudatory sonnet he wrote and set to music for him. It is No. 12 in his first book of

madrigal A madrigal is a form of secular vocal music most typical of the Renaissance music, Renaissance (15th–16th c.) and early Baroque music, Baroque (1600–1750) periods, although revisited by some later European composers. The Polyphony, polyphoni ...

s.Jackson, Grove onlineEinstein, Vol. 1 p. 321 All of Ciera's known music is vocal. His complete surviving output amounts to a single setting of the

mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different eleme ...

, four motets, and two published collections of madrigals. Dates of the works range from 1554 to 1561, with the two books of madrigals – the first for four voices, and the second for five – published in 1554 and 1561, respectively. Ciera's style in his sacred music (the motets and mass) was akin to that of the Netherlanders, with dense pervading

imitation Imitation (from Latin ''imitatio'', "a copying, imitation") is a behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. ...

. His madrigals, on the other hand, use chordal harmonies, and occasionally what was referred to as the "note nere" technique ("black note" for "filled in notes" – i.e. quick note values, running passages, alternating with other textures). Some of the madrigals are

antiphon An antiphon ( Greek ἀντίφωνον, ἀντί "opposite" and φωνή "voice") is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are the Psalms. Their form was favored by St Ambrose and they feature prominentl ...

al in places, reminiscent of the

polychoral An antiphon (Greek ἀντίφωνον, ἀντί "opposite" and φωνή "voice") is a short chant in Christian ritual, sung as a refrain. The texts of antiphons are the Psalms. Their form was favored by St Ambrose and they feature prominently ...

style of the Venetian School.

References

*Philip T. Jackson: "Ippolito Ciera", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed February 6, 2008)
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*

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...

, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. * Alfred Einstein, ''The Italian Madrigal.'' Three volumes. Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1949.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ciera, Ippolito Italian male classical composers Venetian School (music) composers 16th-century births 16th-century deaths 16th-century Italian composers Madrigal composers Italian Dominicans Renaissance composers 16th-century classical composers