- Francesco Soriano
Francesco Soriano (1548 or 1549 – 1621) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most skilled members of the
Roman School in the first generation after Palestrina.Soriano was born at Soriano, near
Viterbo . He studied at theBasilica di San Giovanni in Laterano inRome with several people including Palestrina, became a priest in the 1570s and by 1580 was "maestro di cappella" atS. Luigi dei Francesi , also in Rome. In 1581 he moved toMantua , taking a position at the Gonzaga court there; but in 1586 he moved back toRome where he spent the rest of his life working as choirmaster at three separate churches, including theJulian Chapel at St. Peter's. He retired in 1620.Soriano worked with
Felice Anerio to revise the RomanGradual in accordance with the needs of theCounter-Reformation ; this work was left incomplete by Palestrina.Stylistically, Soriano's music is much like Palestrina's, but shows some influence from the progressive trends prevalent around the turn of the century. He adopted the
polychoral style, while retaining the smooth polyphonic treatment ofPalestrina , and he had a liking for homophonic textures, which generally made it easier to understand sung text.He wrote masses,
motet s (some for eight voices), psalms (one collection, published inVenice in 1616, is for 12 voices andbasso continuo ), settings of the Passion according to each of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John),Marian antiphon s, and several books of madrigals. His Passion settings are significant predecessors of the more famous settings from the Baroque era, for instance those by J.S. Bach; they are set in a restrained but dramatic style, with some attempt at characterization. In some ways they are a predecessor of theoratorio , mixing solo voice, chorus, and non-acted character roles, but in a style more related to Palestrina than to anything Baroque.References
*cite book|chapter=Francesco Soriano|title=The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie|location=London|publisher=Macmillan Publishers|year=1980|id=ISBN 1-56159-174-2
*cite book|first=Gustave|last=Reese|authorlink=Gustave Reese|title=Music in the Renaissance|location=New York|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co.|year=1954|id=ISBN 0-393-09530-4
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