Adriano Banchieri

Adriano Banchieri (September 3, 1568 – 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna.

He was born and died in Bologna. In 1587 he became a monk of the Benedictine order, taking his vows in 1590, and changing his name to Adriano (from Tommaso). One of his teachers at the monastery was Gioseffo Guami, who had a strong influence on his style.

Like Orazio Vecchi he was interested in converting the madrigal to dramatic purposes. Specifically, he was one of the developers of a form called "madrigal comedy" — unstaged but dramatic collections of madrigals which, when sung consecutively, told a story. Formerly, madrigal comedy was considered to be one of the important precursors to opera, but most music scholars now see it as a separate development, part of a general interest in Italy at the time in creating musico-dramatic forms. In addition, he was an important composer of canzonettas, a lighter and hugely popular alternative to the madrigal in the late 16th century. Banchieri disapproved of the monodists with all their revolutionary harmonic tendencies, about which he expressed himself vigorously in his "Moderna Practica Musicale" (1613), while systematizing the legitimate use of the monodic art of figured bass.

In several editions beginning in 1605 (reprinted at least six times before 1638), Banchieri published a series of organ works entitled "l'Organo suonarino". [cite journal|last=Bonta|first=Stephen|title=The Uses of the 'Sonata de Chiesa'|location=Richmond, Va.
url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0139%28196921%2922%3A1%3C54%3ATUOT%22D%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H
journal=Journal of the American Musicological Society|date=Spring 1969|volume=22|issue=1|issn=0003-0139
publisher=American Musicological Society|pages=56|accessdate=2008-01-15]

Banchieri's last publication was the "Trattenimenti da villa" of 1630.cite journal|journal=Early Music History|volume=10|pages=123–143|last=Farahat|first=Martha
title=On the Staging of Madrigal Comedies|date=1991|oclc=8595852
url=http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0261-1279%281991%2910%3C123%3AOTSOMC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O
issn=0261-1279|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge, U.K.
accessdate=2008-01-15
year=1991 Farahat's article concerns itself with the consensus among scholars that Banchieri's madrigal comedies were not intended to be staged but only for concert use, and some evidence that they were so intended; and a few related questions. ] According to Farahat he wrote five madrigal comedies between 1598 and 1628 with "plot and character development", starting with "La pazzia senile" of 1598, the last of them "La saviezza giovenile".

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References

External links

*ChoralWiki
*IckingArchive|idx=Banchieri|name=Adriano Banchieri
*IMSLP|id=Banchieri, Adriano|cname=Adriano Banchieri
*MutopiaComposer|BanchieriA
* [http://classicaland.com/fma.asp "Contraponto bestiale alla mente"] (PDF - original version at classicaland.com)
* Original texts of [http://libri.freenfo.net/0/0012020.html "Bertoldino"] and [http://libri.freenfo.net/0/0012010.html "Caccasenno"]
* [http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/banchson.htm Audio of "Six Sonatas" played on a virtual organ]