Diomedes Cato

Diomedes Cato

Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565 – after 1618) was an Italian-born composer and lute player, who lived and worked entirely in Poland. He is known mainly for his instrumental music. He mixed the style of the late Renaissance with the emerging Baroque, and also Italian idioms with Polish folk material; and in addition he was one of the first native-born Italian composers to visit Sweden.

Contents

Life

He was born near Treviso between 1560 and 1565, possibly at Serravale where his father is documented as being a teacher. Around 1565 his family, who were Protestants, fled Italy to escape the Inquisition, and settled in Poland. Cato, who had left Italy before the age of five, received all of his musical education in Kraków, where the family settled. The first record of his employment dates from 1588, when he was hired as a lutenist by the court of King Sigismund III Vasa, a position he kept until 1593. In 1591 he wrote music for the wedding of Jan Kostka at Świecie castle; the Kostka family may have been patrons of his, since Stanisław Kostka left him a considerable legacy in 1602.

In 1593 and 1594 he went with King Sigismund to Sweden, where his fame as a lutenist and composer was evidently large; as late as 1600 he was still the most famous composer of Italian origin known in Sweden. Some of his music, including a few Polish dances, survives from sources only in Sweden. The last tentative record of his life is from 1619, when there is a single unconfirmed reference to him playing the lute during that year.

Music

Cato wrote both vocal and instrumental music, and both sacred and secular: however he was most famous for his works for lute. The lute works include dozens of pieces in many forms and styles, including choreae polonicae, fantasias, galliards, transcriptions of Italian madrigals, passamezzos, and preludes, all of which he probably played himself. Stylistically, they cover the full range of possibilities on the lute. The preludes are chordal for the most part; the fantasias are imitative ricercars; and there is a set of eight Polish dances, probably derived from actual folk music. Some aspects of early Baroque style are clear in Cato's music, including the use of short motifs which recur to unify longer sections, and the use of linking episodic sections between thematic statements; on the other hand, some of his lute music includes lines of vocal character in strict imitation, more in the style of the mid-to-late 16th century polyphonists.

Other instrumental music by Cato includes pieces for consorts of viols, as well as solo keyboard.

His vocal works include settings of Polish sacred songs in a collection entitled Rytmy łacińskie dziwnie sztuczne ... for four voices and lute, as well as Pieśń o świętym Stanisławie, for four voices unaccompanied. He also wrote an Italian madrigal, Tirsi morir volea, for five voices, though it only exists in an arrangement for solo voice and instrumental accompaniment: a transcription which could either represents a conscious conformance to the new Baroque conception of the solo madrigal.

References

  • Piotr Poźniak: "Diomedes Cato", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 8, 2006), (subscription access)
  • Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
  • W. Urban: "Notatki źródłowe o muzykach polskich w XVI wieku" [Notes on 16th century Polish musicians], Muzyka, xxxii/1 (1987), 57–63 (in Polish)

External links


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Diomedes Cato — (* nach 1560 bei Treviso; † nach 1618) war ein italienischer Komponist und Lautenist der Renaissance und des Frühbarock, der in Polen gewirkt hat. Leben In verschiedenen zeitgenössischen Berichten und Quellen wird er oft nur als Diomedes erwähnt …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Diomedes (disambiguation) — Diomedes may mean: Diomedes, in Greek mythology, a hero of the Trojan War and king of Argos. Diomedes Soter, an Indo Greek king. Diomedes of Thrace, king of Thrace in Greek mythology, owner of four man eating mares in the 8th Labour of Hercules… …   Wikipedia

  • Cato — may refer to: Literature * Cato s Letters, a series of libertarian essays written in the 1720s * Distichs of Cato or simply Cato , a medieval Latin language schoolbook moral guide * Cato , 18th century drama by Joseph Addison, based on the life… …   Wikipedia

  • Cato — bezeichnet Cato (Cognomen), römisches Cognomen das Cato Institute, amerikanische Denkfabrik Orte in den Vereinigten Staaten Cato (Arkansas) Cato (Indiana) Cato (Kansas) Cato (Mississippi) Cato (Missouri) Cato (New York) Cato (Oklahoma) Cato… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Диомед К. —         (Diomedes) Като ( Венетус ) (1570, Венеция ок. 1615, Польша, точные даты рожд. и смерти неизвестны) польский лютнист и композитор. Ок. 1590 прибыл в Польшу в свите гос. казначея С. Костки, с 1601 лютнист при дворе Сигизмунда III Вазы.… …   Музыкальная энциклопедия

  • Liste der Biografien/Cat–Caz — Biografien: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Като, Диомед — Диомед Като (ит./поль. Diomedes Cato) (1560/1565  после 1619)  композитор и лютнист итальянского происхождения, почти всю жизнь жил и работал в Польше. Известен своей инструментальной музыкой в смешанном стиле переходного периода между… …   Википедия

  • List of Renaissance composers — This is a list of composers active during the Renaissance period of European history. Since the 14th century is not usually considered by music historians to be part of the musical Renaissance, but part of the Middle Ages, composers active during …   Wikipedia

  • Liste der Komponisten/C — Komponisten klassischer Musik   A B C D E F G H I J K L …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Poland — Polska redirects here. For other uses, see Polska (disambiguation). This article is about the country. For other uses, see Poland (disambiguation). Republic of Poland Rzeczpospolita Polska …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”