General Information
- Adrian was a music composer from the Netherlands
- He founded the Venetian school at San Marco
- Date of Birth is not known
- We do know that he had been born at Rumbeke near Roeselare
- Died on December 7th, 1562 in Venice
- He moved to Italy and spread the polyphonic Franco-Flemish (also known as Netherlandish) style there, which was typical of the North and consisted of many different voices (polyphonic)
- Studied under Jean Mouton and Josquin des Prez
- Entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este of Ferrara and Duke Alfonso of Ferrara
Teaching and Students
- Adrian was an important teacher, whose pupils included Rore, Vicentino, Parabosco, Andrea Gabrieli, Porta, Buus, Barré, and Zarlino.
- Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance.
- He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.
- Body of Work of composers working in Venice from approximately 1550 to 1610
- Compositions were Venetian Polychoral
- Adrian Willart was the first composer to write compositions like these
- He wrote music so groups of singers and instruments played sometimes in opposition, and sometimes together, united by the sound of the organ.
Questions
1. Where was Adrian Willaert from?
2. What was his writing style like?
3. How was he involved in the Venitian School?
4. What happened with the Papal Chapel?
5. Which two places did Adrian go?
6. Who did he work under?
7. Who did he teach and what did the student do?
8. How did he influence the Venetian Polychoral Style?
9. When was he born and when did he die?
10. What was his impact on the Renaissance?
Style of Composition
Life story
- Willaert went to Paris first to study law, but instead decided to study music.
- In Paris he met Jean Mouton, the principal composer of the French royal chapel and stylistic compatriot of Josquin des Prez, and studied with him.
- Sometime around 1515 Willaert first went to Rome.
- In July 1515, Willaert entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este of Ferrara.
- Willaert entered the service of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara.
- In 1522 Willaert had a post at the court chapel of Duke Alfonso
- Willaert was one of the most versatile composers of the Renaissance, writing music in almost every extant style and form.
- Adrian owes much of his fame in sacred music to his motets (highly varied musical composition).
- Willaert was the inventor of the antiphonal style from which the polychoral style of the Venetian school evolved.
- As there were two choir lofts, one of each side of the main altar of St. Mark's, both provided with an organ, Willaert divided the choral body into two sections, using them either antiphonally or simultaneously.
Papal Chapel Incident
- Willaert was surprised to discover the choir of the papal chapel singing one of his own compositions, most likely the six-part motet Verbum bonum et suave.
- They thought it had been written by the much more famous composer Josquin.
- They refused to sing it again once they learned who wrote it.
- Willaert's early style is very similar to that of Josquin, with smooth polyphony, balanced voices and frequent use of imitation.
Musical Writing Styles
- Willaert's most significant appointment, and one of the most significant in the musical history of the Renaissance, was his selection as maestro di cappella of St. Mark's at Venice.
- Music had languished there under his predecessor, Pietro de Fossis (1491-1525), but that was shortly to change.
- The Venetian Doge Andrea Gritti had a rather large hand in Willaert’s appointment to the position of maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s.
- From his appointment in 1527 until his death in 1562, he retained the post at St. Mark's.
- Composers came from all over Europe to study with him, and his standards were high both for singing and composition.
- Willaert developed the canzone (a form of polyphonic secular song) and ricercare, which were forerunners of modern instrumental forms.
- Willaert also arranged 22 four-part madrigals for voice and lute written by Verdelot.
- In an early 4-part vocal work, Quid non ebrietas? (In some sources called the Chromatic Duo) Willaert uses musica ficta around the circle of 5ths in one of the voices resulting in an augmented 7th in unison with the ending octave.
- Willaert was among the first to extensively use chromaticism in the madrigal.
- Looking forward, we are given an image of early word painting in his madrigal Mentre che’l cor.
Franco-Flemish School
- Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in the Burgundian States (Burgundy, Picardy, Burgundian Flanders) in the 15th and early 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it.
- Most of these musicians were born in Hainaut, Flanders, Brabant or Picardy.
- During periods of political stability, such as the Burgundian Low Countries, this was a center of cultural activity, although the exact centers shifted location during this time, and by the end of the sixteenth century the focal point of the Western musical world shifted from this region to Italy.
Venitian Polychoral Style
- Invented the antiphonal style from which the Venitian Polychoral Style evolved.
- The Venetian polychoral style was a type of music of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras which involved spatially separate choirs singing in alternation.
- It represented a major stylistic shift from the prevailing polyphonic writing of the middle Renaissance, and was one of the major stylistic developments which led directly to the formation of what we now know as the Baroque style
Adrian Willaert