Adriano Banchieri (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 (then in the Papal States). 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...(+)
Adriano Banchieri (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 (then in the Papal States). 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. Banchieri's last
publication was the Trattenimenti da villa of 1630.
According to Martha 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.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriano_Banchieri).
Although originally written for Organ, I created this
Interpretation of "Fantasia Prima" from "Fantasie overo
canzoni alla Francese a 4 voci" for String Quartet (2
Violins, Viola & Cello).