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This book presents an overview of sacred music published by Venetian printing houses in the first half of the seventeenth century. In contrast with many assessments of the period, which focus on the works of Claudio Monteverdi and Giovanni Gabrieli, the book highlights particularly the contributions of composers who are less familiar to modern audiences, such as Ignazio Donati, Alessandro Grandi and Giovanni Rovetta. Many of the pieces the author discusses were not available in modern editions at the time the book was published, meaning the inclusion of a larger quantity of illustrative examples than other similar works. The first section of the book provides a historical and social context ...
Monteverdi was born at Cremona in 1567 and died in Venice in 1643. The innovative nature of much of his music has generated considerable artistic and literary comment from the year 1600 onward. In this critical study, the author provides a practically oriented and concise book for both the musician and the researcher. He has avoided the tyranny of a chronological ordering of the compositions by considering them in the broad categories of sacred, secular, and occasional music, and has included fifty musical examples by way of illustration. The first category, dealing with secular vocal music, begins with the pieces written for Guarini's Il pastor fido. There is a special discussion of dialogues, followed by a survey of madrigals with and without continuo. Then come the canzonette, trios, duets, and solos. The section on religious music discusses settings of the Mass and Vespers.