Claudio Saracini (1 July 1586 – 20 September 1630) was an Italian composer,

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 ref ...

nist, and singer 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 one of the most famous and distinguished composers of monody.

Life

Saracini was born to a noble family, probably in Siena. Little is known for certain about his education, but it is presumed that he traveled widely while he was young, for not only did he establish numerous foreign connections—as evidenced by his dedications of music to foreign aristocrats—but he absorbed some of the musical styles of the lands he visited. He seems never to have held a professional musical position of which record has survived; indeed he seems to have been an extraordinarily talented amateur, one who was admired even by

Claudio Monteverdi Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi (baptized 15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, choirmaster and string player. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered ...

. The references to Saracini as "Il Palusi" seem to indicate that he was a member of an academy, although further details are lacking. All of his music was published in

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

between 1614 and 1624.

Music and influence

Of his music, 133 songs have survived, and all are monodies—secular compositions for solo voice, generally sung in a highly ornamented style, with instrumental accompaniment. All but one are in Italian, and encompass a wide range of texts, including serious, humorous, and erotic. His style varies from

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize Scale (music), scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, Interval (music), intervals, Chord (music), chords, Musical note, notes, musical sty ...

chromatic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are most often used to characterize scales, and are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair, ...

, and is comparable to that of contemporary monodist Sigismondo d'India in its experimental qualities. A unique feature of Saracini's compositions is the occasional influence of folk music, including that of the Balkans, an extreme rarity in early Italian Baroque music. Presumably he heard folk music in those regions when he traveled there during his youth. This influence is most evident in his strophic songs, one of which is in 5/4 (although actually notated in duple meter); asymmetrical meters are a normal feature of Balkan folk music but are absent in Italian. Saracini's works have had a resurgence of interest in the 20th century, after a long period of neglect. His experimental idiom first attracted the attention of

musicologists Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some ...

, and later, performers; his compositions are now recorded relatively frequently, often on collections containing works of other composers of the same era, such as Monteverdi or Alessandro Grandi.

References

* Nigel Fortune, "Claudio Saracini," ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *Nigel Fortune, Peter Laki: "Claudio Saracini", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 2, 2005)
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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saracini, Claudio Italian male classical composers Italian Baroque composers 1586 births 1630 deaths 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century male musicians