Girolamo Dalla Casa (d.1601) was an Italian composer, instrumentalist, and writer of the late Renaissance. He was a member of the Venetian School, and was perhaps more famous and influential as a performer than as a composer. Events February 8 - Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, rebels against Elizabeth I of England - revolt is quickly crushed February 25 - Robert Devereux beheaded Jesuit Matteo Ricci arrives in China Bad harvest in Russia due to rainy summer Dutch troops drive Portuguese from Málaga Battle of Kinsale, Ireland Births... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... 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. ...

Nothing is known about his life prior to his arrival at Venice, but he was probably born at Udine sometime before the middle of the 16th century. He was first hired by the musical establishment of St. Mark's in 1568, along with his two brothers, Giovanni and Nicolò, where they formed the first permanent instrumental ensemble. The sonorous acoustical environment of this basilica was the center of activity of the Venetians. Giovanni Gabrieli clearly had Dalla Casa's group in mind for much of his music, and the Dalla Casas are presumed to have played in many the elaborate polychoral compositions of the time. Venice (Italian: Venezia, Venetian: Venezsia) is the capital of region Veneto, and has a population of 271,663 (census estimate January 1, 2004). ... Udine (Friulian Udin, Slovene Videm) is a city in the north-east of Italy, capital of the historical region of Friuli, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps (Alpi Carniche), less than 40 km far from the Slovenian border. ... (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. ... 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. ... Events March 23 - Peace of Longjumeau ends the Second War of Religion in France. ... St. ... Giovanni Gabrieli Giovanni Gabrieli (c. ... This article is about the musical term. ...

Dalla Casa was a virtuoso player of the cornett, which he described as 'the most excellent of all instruments'.

The use of the Dalla Casas by Gabrieli and St. Mark's foreshadowed, and may have influenced, the development of the concertino-ripieno style of the concerto grosso in the later Baroque. Being a smaller group of virtuoso instrumentalists playing in contrast to larger instrumental and vocal forces arrayed around them, and being in the center of a hugely influential stylistic movement, they functioned as an early form of concertino. Much of the music which Gabrieli and the other Venetians wrote for them survives. A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. ... Ripieno (Italian for stuffing) or tutti (Italian for everybody) is the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. ... The concerto grosso (plural concerti grossi) (Italian for big concert) was a popular form of baroque music using an ensemble and usually having four to six movements in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists (the concertino) and full orchestra (the ripieno). ...

Two books of madrigals and one book of motets survive from his compositional output, which probably was not large. More important to musicology, however, was his two-part 1584 treatise on ornamentation (Il vero modo di diminuir), which gives clear and precise examples of ornamentation as it was practiced in singing and playing motets and madrigals at the time. From this treatise it is clear that polyphonic works were usually performed unadorned, but works in a more homophonic style, and especially grand polychoral works with frequent sectional changes and prominent cadences, were embellished with ornaments, few of which appear in the actual notated music. A madrigal is a setting for two or more voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... Musicology is reasoned discourse concerning music (Greek: μουσικη = music and λογος = word or reason). In other words: the whole body of systematized knowledge about music which results from the application of a scientific method of investigation or research, or of philosophical speculation and rational systematization to the facts, the processes and the... 1584 was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar or a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... In music, ornaments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to the overall melodic (or harmonic) line, but serve to decorate or ornament that line. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ... In Western musical theory a cadence (Latin cadentia, a falling) is a particular series of intervals or chords that ends a phrase, section, or piece of music. ...

Selected publications

• Il vero modo di diminuir con tutte le sorti stromenti [di fiato, & corda, & di voce humana], originally published Venice 1584. Translation by Jesse Rosenberg in Historic Brass Society Journal, Volume 1, Issue 1 (1989)

References and further reading

• Eleanor Selfridge-Field, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York, Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
• "Girolamo Dalla Casa", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4