Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565 – d.1627 in Gdansk) was
an Italian-born composer and lute player, who lived and
worked entirely in Poland and Lithuania. 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. He was born near Treviso
between 1560 and 1565, possibly at Serravale where his
father is docu...(+)
Diomedes Cato (1560 to 1565 – d.1627 in Gdansk) was
an Italian-born composer and lute player, who lived and
worked entirely in Poland and Lithuania. 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. 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.
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 represent a conscious
conformance to the new Baroque conception of the solo
madrigal.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diomedes_Cato)
Although originally written for Chorus (SAAT), I
created this Interpretation of the Fantasia for Concert
(Pedal) Harp.
SHEET MUSIC