Alessandro Grandi
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Alessandro Grandi (1590 – after June 1630, but in that year) was a northern Italian composer of the early
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
era, writing in the new concertato style. He was one of the most inventive, influential, and popular composers of the time, probably second only to Monteverdi in northern Italy.


Life

Grandi was born in
Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...
and spent the first part of his life there, likely studying with
Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (/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 (music), Venetian School, at the t ...
. He held several posts in Ferrara as ''maestro di cappella'' at different cathedrals and academies. In 1617 he won a post at St. Mark's in Venice, during the time Monteverdi was choirmaster there. Eventually he became Monteverdi's assistant, and during this time seems to have chosen to write works in some of the smaller forms which Monteverdi was neglecting. In 1627 he went to
Bergamo Bergamo ( , ; ) is a city in the Alps, alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from the alpine lakes Lake Como, Como and Lake Iseo, Iseo and 70 km (43 mi) from Lake Garda, Garda and Lake ...
, probably because he had an opportunity to be ''maestro di cappella'' at a place where he could build up the music program from scratch. Most likely he met
Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque music, Baroque composer and organ (music), organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and one of the most important composers of ...
on that composer's second visit to Italy. Unfortunately, after only three years at Bergamo, Grandi died in 1630 during an outbreak of the plague.


Works

Most of Grandi's music is vocal with instrumental accompaniment. Stylistically, his early music is similar to that of
Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (/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 (music), Venetian School, at the t ...
, with alternating short passages of greatly contrasting
rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...
s and
texture Texture may refer to: Science and technology * Image texture, the spatial arrangement of color or intensities in an image * Surface texture, the smoothness, roughness, or bumpiness of the surface of an object * Texture (roads), road surface c ...
; however he usually wrote for smaller forces. Most of Grandi's early compositions are
motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the preeminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to the Eng ...
s in the concertato style: some are duets and trios, an innovation in motet writing, which usually involved larger groups. Grandi was one of the few composers who continued to write involved vocal
polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...
over the ''
basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...
'' right after its introduction—most composers using the continuo in the first decades of the 17th century wrote monodies, or preferred more
homophonic Homophony and Homophonic are from the Greek language, Greek ὁμόφωνος (''homóphōnos''), literally 'same sounding,' from ὁμός (''homós''), "same" and φωνή (''phōnē''), "sound". It may refer to: *Homophones − words with the s ...
textures. Grandi experimented with extreme emotionalism in some of his music, with
chromaticism Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic scale, diatonic pitch (music), pitches and chord (music), chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. In simple terms, within each octave, diatonic music uses o ...
, ornament, and affectation. While harmonically he was not as adventurous as Gesualdo, he was connected to the larger tradition, and thus his works were almost as influential as Monteverdi's. He ceaselessly innovated, writing monodies with instruments such as
violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...
s, and in a sectional form with repeating parts for instruments only—an idea which would develop into the ''
ritornello A ritornello (Italian; "little return") is a recurring passage in Renaissance music and 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 ...
.'' The music of Grandi shows a link between the ''concertato'' style which began the Baroque era, and the form of the
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian language, Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal music, vocal Musical composition, composition with an musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, ty ...
which culminated in the work of J.S. Bach. Grandi was one of the most popular composers of his day; his works were published throughout Italy, Germany, and the
Low Countries The Low Countries (; ), historically also known as the Netherlands (), is a coastal lowland region in Northwestern Europe forming the lower Drainage basin, basin of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta and consisting today of the three modern "Bene ...
, and continued to be reprinted long after his death. He wrote motets, psalm settings, madrigals, as well as some of the earliest compositions to be called "
cantata A cantata (; ; literally "sung", past participle feminine singular of the Italian language, Italian verb ''cantare'', "to sing") is a vocal music, vocal Musical composition, composition with an musical instrument, instrumental accompaniment, ty ...
."


References


Further reading

* Manfred Bukofzer, ''Music in the Baroque Era''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. *Articles "Alessandro Grandi", "Monody", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.


External links

* *
Free scores
at the Mutopia Project {{DEFAULTSORT:Grandi, Alessandro 1590 births 1630 deaths Italian Baroque composers Italian male classical composers 17th-century deaths from plague (disease) 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian male musicians