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Composers Biography                                                   
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Luca Marenzio

(1553 or 1554 - 1599)
 

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Luca Marenzio Life


Luca Marenzio was originally a choir boy in Brescia Cathedral.

He spent much of his later career in the service of influential ecclesiastical patrons in Rome, including Cardinal Luigi d'Este, a member of the ruling family of Ferrara, and Virgino Orsini.

Marenzio was a prolific composer of vocal music and he also wrote a considerable amount of sacred music.

He had already published his first two books of madrigals for four, five and six voices when he left Rome and settled for a time in Florence in the service of Ferdinando de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

His collections of madrigals were of historical importance in the development of the Italian madrigal and were immediately circulated throughout Europe and imitated in England towards the end of the 16th century.

Luca Marenzio Works

 

Marenzio’s characteristic madrigals, on the usual pastoral subjects, include Cruda Amarilli, Care mie selve, settings of Guarini.

MIDI FILE - Madrigal in 5 parts (0'57'')

He wrote over four hundred madrigals, which include settings of verses by Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Guarini and Tasso, and a complete series of motets for all church festivals.