Gioseffo Zarlino (January 31 or March 22, 1517 – February 4, 1590), 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. January 31 is the 31st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 22 March is the 81st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (82nd in Leap years). ... Events January 22 - Battle of Ridanieh. ... February 4 is the 35th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events March 14 - Battle of Ivry - Henry IV of France again defeats the forces of the Catholic League under the Duc de Mayenne. ... Music theory is a field of study that describes the elements of music and includes the development and application of methods for analyzing and composing music, and the interrelationship between the notation of music and performance practice. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... Aristoxenus of Tarentum (4th century BC) was a Greek peripatetic philosopher, and writer on music and rhythm. ... Jean-Philippe Rameau (September 25, 1683 - September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. ... Counterpoint is a musical technique involving the simultaneous sounding of separate musical lines. ...

Life

Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice. His early education was with the Franciscans, and he later joined the order himself. In 1536 he was a singer at Chioggia Cathedral, and by 1539 he not only became a deacon, but became principal organist. In 1540 he was ordained, and in 1541 went to Venice to study with the famous contrapuntist and maestro di cappella of Saint Mark's, Adrian Willaert. Chioggia is a coastal town and comune of the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy, 45°13N 12°17E, situated on a small island at the southern entrance to the Lagoon of Venice about 25 km south of Venice (50 km by road); causeways connect it... Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venexia) , the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto and of the province of Venice in Italy. ... The Order of Friars Minor and other Franciscan movements are disciples of Saint Francis of Assisi. ... Events February 2 - Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina. ... Events May 30 - In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal to find gold. ... Events January 6 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort. ... Events The first official translation of the entire Bible in Swedish February 12 - Pedro de Valdivia founds Santiago de Chile. ... San Marco di Venezia, as seen from the Piazza San Marco St Marks Basilica (Italian: Basilica di San Marco) is the most famous of the churches of Venice and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture. ... Adrian Willaert (c. ...

In 1565, on the resignation of Cipriano de Rore, Zarlino took over the post of maestro di cappella of St. Mark's, one of the most prestigious musical positions in Italy, and held it until his death. While maestro di cappella he taught some of the principal figures of the Venetian school of composers, including Claudio Merulo, Girolamo Diruta, and Giovanni Croce, as well as Vincenzo Galilei, the father of the astronomer, and the famous reactionary polemicist Giovanni Artusi. Cypriano de Rore or Cipriano de Rore (1515 or 1516 – September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer and teacher. ... In music history, the Venetian School is a term used to describe the composers working in Venice from about 1550 to around 1610; it also describes the music they produced. ... Claudio Merulo (Merlotti, Merulus, also Claudio da Correggio) (April 8, 1533 – May 4, 1604) was an Italian composer, publisher and organist of the late Renaissance, famous for his innovative keyboard music and his ensemble music in the Venetian polychoral style. ... Girolamo Diruta (c. ... Giovanni Croce (also Ioanne a Cruce Clodiensis) (1557 – May 15, 1609) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance, of the Venetian School. ... Vincenzo Galilei (1520 – July 2, 1591) was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, and the father of the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. ... Giovanni Maria Artusi (c. ...

Works and influence

While he was a moderately prolific composer, and his motets are polished and display a mastery of canonic counterpoint, his principal claim to fame was his work as a theorist. He advocated division of the octave into twelve parts, and while Pietro Aaron may have been the first theorist to describe a version of meantone, Zarlino seems to have been the first to do so with exactitude, describing 2/7-comma meantone in his Le istitutioni harmoniche in 1558. In his Dimonstrationi harmoniche of 1571, he revised the numbering of modes to emphasize C and the Ionian mode, thereby drawing closer to the harmonic and melodic system basing itself on tonality and the major and minor scales. In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... Counterpoint is a musical technique involving the simultaneous sounding of separate musical lines. ... Pietro Aron (also Pietro Aaron), c. ... Events January 7 - French troops led by Francis, Duke of Guise take Calais, the last continental possession of England July 13 - Battle of Gravelines: In France, Spanish forces led by Count Lamoral of Egmont defeat the French forces of Marshal Paul des Thermes at Gravelines. ... Events January 11 - Austrian nobility is granted Freedom of religion. ...

Zarlino was the first to recognize the primacy of the triad over the interval as a means of harmonic thinking. His development of just intonation came from a realization of the imperfection of the intervals in the Pythagorean system, and a desire to retain as much purity as possible in a system of twelve tones. He was also the first to attempt an explanation of the old prohibition of parallel fifths and octaves as a rule of counterpoint, and the first to study the effect and harmonic implications of the false relation. In music, Just intonation, also called rational intonation, is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by whole number ratios; that is, by positive rational numbers. ... The Pythagoreans were an Hellenic organization of astronomers, musicians, mathematicians, and philosophers; who believed that all things are, essentially, numeric. ...

Zarlino's writings, primarily published by Francesco Franceschi, spread throughout Europe at the end of the 16th century. Translations and annotated versions were common in France, Germany, as well as in the Netherlands among the students of Sweelinck, thus influencing the next generation of musicians who represented the early Baroque style. Page from Francesco Franceschis 1565 edition of Orlando Furioso. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562–October 16, 1621) was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. ... Baroque music describes an era and a set of styles of European classical music which were in widespread use between approximately 1600 to 1750 (see Dates of classical music eras for a discussion of the problems inherent in defining the beginning and end points). ...

Zarlino's compositions are more conservative in idiom than those of many of his contemporaries. His madrigals even avoid the homophonic textures which were commonly used by other composers, remaining polyphonic throughout, in the manner of his motets. His works published between 1549 and 1567, include 41 motets, mostly for five and six voices, and 13 secular works, mostly madrigals, for four and five voices.

References

• Article "Gioseffo Zarlino", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304
• Gioseffo Zarlino, Istituzioni armoniche, tr. Oliver Strunk, in Source Readings in Music History. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1950.