Il Promo Libro De Madrigali A Cinque Voci Venice 1578

Leonard Meldert’s Primo libro de madrigali a cinque voci (Venice, 1578) has an interest and musical quality far beyond what one might guess from the modest facts of the author’s life and works. The book partly reflects the musical tastes of the court of Urbino in the final years of Duke Guidobaldo II Della Rovere (1514–74) and of the private household of his brother, Cardinal Giulio Della Rovere (1533–78). But its structure and contents display some unusual features that can be linked to the circumstances of Meldert’s life and to his own initiative in projecting and assembling his book of madrigals. Moreover, it offers the first settings of then-recent poems by Torquato Tasso, Giovanni Battista Guarini, and Giuliano Goselini, the result of the composer’s personal contacts in the court of Ferrara and his ties to the literary and musical circle of Antonio Londonio, a Milan-based Spanish diplomat. This edition presents the Primo libro for the first time in a modern edition, examining Meldert’s textual choices and musical style within the contexts of courtly life, his personal biography, and the nascent seconda prattica.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1994. Il primo libro di madrigali a quattro voci (Venice, 1555)

Explores the role of music in the cultural, religious, and political upheavals of late Renaissance Italy, revealing how musical activity of all kinds was instrumentalized by those in power. Italian culture did not lose its vigour after 1530, but underwent a transformation.

Madrigali a cinque voci...libro primo (Venice, 1546)

This 1994 collection of fourteen essays, written by an eminent group of scholars, explores the musical culture of the German-speaking realm between c.1450 and 1600. The essays demonstrate the important role played by German speakers in the development of instrumental music in the Renaissance, the shaping of the curricula of musical education in the modern age, in setting patterns of musical patronage, in establishing congregational singing in churches, and in developing commercial music printing. The essays shed light on the music that flourished at Imperial and ducal courts, universities, parish churches, collegiate schools, as well as the homes of prosperous merchants. The volume thus provides an overview of German polyphonic music in the age of Gutenberg, Dürer and Luther and documents the changing social status of music in Germany during a crucial epoch of its history.