Luca Marenzio (1553-1599); ITA

Luca Marenzio (1553/54–1599) was an Italian composer and singer, probably born at Coccaglio near Brescia. He spent much of his career in Rome in the service of powerful patrons, including Cardinal Luigi d’Este and members of the Aldobrandini family, and also worked for the Medici in Florence. Late in his life he travelled to Poland to serve at the court of King Sigismund III before returning to Rome, where he died in 1599.

Marenzio was one of the supreme masters of the late-Renaissance madrigal, leaving around five hundred examples of the genre. His music ranges from graceful, pastoral writing to highly expressive works employing chromaticism, harmonic tension, and exceptionally sensitive word-painting. Collections of his madrigals circulated widely across Europe, and pieces by him appeared prominently in Musica Transalpina, the 1588 anthology that helped ignite the English madrigal vogue. His sophisticated union of poetry and music strongly influenced the generation leading to Monteverdi.

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Read biography at allmusic.com.