MARENZIO, LUCA

Renaissance composer, renowned for his madrigals; b. Coccaglio (near Brescia), Italy, 1553; d. Rome, Aug. 22, 1599. As a boy he may have studied with Giovanni Contino at Brescia cathedral. While serving Cardinal Luigi d'Este in Rome (1579–86), he often visited the brilliant este court in Ferrara. From 1591 to 1595 Cardinal Aldobrandini was his patron, and from 1596 to 1598 he was at the Polish court of Sigismund III. He was one of the rare Italian musicians of the period who never held a church appointment. His influence as a composer of matchless Italian madrigals is directly responsible for the flowering of the English madrigal school. Although his secular works are most numerous, his sacred music includes a Mass for 8 voices, two books of 4-voice motets (1588,1592), a book of 12-voice motets (1614), a book of Sacri concenti for 5 to 7 voices (1616), and a series of motets for church festivals. Reprints of his sacred works include: Luca Marenzio: Motetten (ed. H. Engel, 1926); motets in F. X. Haberl's Repertorium Musicae Sacrae (1886–1925); and other items in K. Proske's Musica Divina (1853–63).

Bibliography: Sämtliche Werke, ed. a. einstein (Leipzig 1929–). There are modern eds. of the motets by m. haller in Repertorium Musicae Sacrae, ed. f. x. haberl (1886–1925) and h. engel (Vienna 1926). h. engel, Luca Marenzio (Florence 1956). a. einstein, The Italian Madrigal, tr. a. h. krappe et al., 3 v. (Princeton N.J. 1949), v. 2. g. reese, Music in the Renaissance (rev. ed. New York 1959). j. ravell and s. broman, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. e. blom, 9 v. (5th ed. London 1954) 5:574–576. n. slonimsky, ed., Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (5th ed. New York 1958) 1028. o. cullin, "Luca Marenzio: Madrigaux à 5 voix, Livres 5 et 6, Part 1," Analyse Musicale, 25 (1991) 53–64; "Luca Marenzio: Madrigaux à 5 voix, Livres 5 et 6, Part 2," Analyse Musicale, 26 (1992) 65–71. r. freedman, "Marenzio's Madrigali a quattro, cinque et sei voci of 1588: A Newly Revealed Madrigal Cycle and Its Intellectual Context," Journal of Musicology, 13 (1995) 318–354. s. ledbetter and r. jackson, "Luca Marenzio," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. s. sadie, v. 11 (New York 1980) 667–674. b. janz, "Die Petrarca-Vertonungen von Luca Marenzio" (Ph.D. diss. Frankfurt am Main 1987). l. macy, "The Late Madrigals of Luca Marenzio" (Ph.D. diss. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1991). j. steele, "Marenzio: From Mannerist to Expressionist," Miscellanea Musicologica, 11 (1980) 129–153.

[l. j. wagner]