Adriano Banchieri (1568-1634); ITA

Adriano Banchieri (1568–1634) was an Italian composer, organist, theorist, and Benedictine monk whose career was centered principally in Bologna and its surroundings. Born Tommaso Banchieri in Bologna, he entered the Benedictine order of the Olivetans in 1587 and took the name Adriano. He studied organ and composition with Gioseffo Guami and served as organist at several monasteries before returning to the monastery of San Michele in Bosco near Bologna, where he spent much of his later life. Banchieri was active not only as a composer and performer but also as a prolific writer on music, producing treatises on counterpoint, figured bass, organ playing, and practical aspects of composition. In 1615 he helped found Bologna's Accademia dei Floridi, an important musical academy that later evolved through several incarnations into the celebrated Accademia Filarmonica.

Banchieri composed sacred music, madrigals, instrumental pieces, and especially humorous dramatic works that combine madrigal writing with vivid characterization and theatrical situations. His best-known collections include La pazzia senile, Il metamorfosi musicale, Il zabaione musicale, and Festino nella sera del giovedì grasso avanti cena. These “madrigal comedies” link a sequence of vocal pieces around characters or a loose narrative and occupy an important place in the development of secular musical theater around 1600, although they are distinct from the emerging genre of opera. Banchieri was also an early advocate of basso continuo and contributed significantly to the practical theory of keyboard accompaniment. His music often combines accomplished contrapuntal technique with parody, vernacular speech, animal imitations, and comic effects, making him one of the most engaging musical personalities of the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque.

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Read biography at allmusic.com.