Everything about Lodovico Zacconi totally explained
Lodovico or
Ludovico Zacconi (
June 11,
1555 –
March 23,
1627) was an
Italian-
Austrian composer and
musical theorist of the late
Renaissance and early
Baroque eras. He worked as a singer,
theologian, and writer on music in northern Italy and
Austria; for a time he was in the employ of
Archduke Karl of Graz, and worked in
Graz and
Vienna.
Biography
Born in
Pesaro, in the
Marche, Zacconi became an
Augustinian friar at
Venice, where he was ordained priest. In 1577 he was in Venice studying at the church of San Stefano, and at some point in the following six years he was accepted by Andrea Gabrieli as a student of counterpoint. In 1584 he auditioned at
San Marco as a singer, and was accepted; however he seems to have declined the position. Also at this time he met Zarlino, the prominent Venetian School theorist; he was to mention the meeting in the second part of his
Prattica di musica (1622). On July 20, 1585, he joined the musical establishment of
Archduke Karl of Graz, a position he retained until Karl's death in 1590. Subsequently he joined the chapel of
Wilhelm V, Duke of Bavaria, which was directed by
Orlande de Lassus.
In 1596 he left the employ of
Wilhelm, returning to Italy; in the following years he worked as a prior at Pesaro, as a preacher and administrator in both Italy and
Crete. He retired to Pesaro in 1612, where he remained until his death (at
Fiorenzuola di Focara, near Pesaro).
Works
Zacconi's fame rests on his great work
Prattica di Musica, first published in 1592 at Venice, of which a second volume appeared in 1619 (or, according to other sources, 1622).
His theoretical works are conservative, and make no mention of the emerging Baroque style, in spite of his studies with the distinguished
Venetian composer
Andrea Gabrieli. His most important works are the two books of
Prattica di musica (
Musical Practice) which he published in Venice in
1592 and
1622. These two volumes -- containing four works -- treat exhaustively of musical theory, and are copiously illustrated. The directions for rendering
polyphonic music are of the highest value, especially the
Palestrina illustrations. He deals fully with the six Authentic and six
Plagal Modes, studiously omitting the
Locrian and
Hypolocrian Modes. But he also treats of orchestral instruments -- their compass and method of playing -- and gives valuable information as to the scoring of early
operas and
oratorios. In fact he covers the whole ground of music, as practised at the close of the
16th century.
Zacconi's treatises are an invaluable guide to study of performance practice of vocal music of the very late Renaissance. Parts of his work were incorporated by
Michael Praetorius into his
Syntagma musicum (
1618), and by
Pietro Cerone into his
Melopeo y maestro (
1613).
Sources
-
- Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
Further Information
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