VIADANA, LODOVICO DA

Early baroque composer of the concertato style; b. Viadana, Italy, c. 1564 (family name, Grossi); d. Gualtieri, May 2, 1627 (Haberl) or 1645 (Parazzi). He was a pupil of C. Porta, and was chapelmaster at the Mantua cathedral 1590 to 1609, at Concordia (1609–12), and at Fano (1612). He had joined the Franciscan Order in 1596. His music, which consists of numerous Masses, Vesper psalms, and other church works, in addition to two books of canzonettas, falls in the transitional style between Renaissance and baroque. He was among the first to use basso continuo in church music, sometimes utilizing both this and older techniques within the same piece. The preface and musical content of his two-volume Cento concerti ecclesiastici…Con il basso continuo per sonar nel'organo (Venice 1602–07) became a well-known manual for the use of basso continuo in church music.

Bibliography: l. da viadana, "Cento concerti ecclesiastici: Preface," o. strunk, Source Readings in Music History (New York 1950) 419–423. l. g. parazzi, Viadana (Milan 1876). f. x. haberl, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 14 (1889) 44–67. Musica sacra 30 (1897) 267–268. r. haas, Die Musik des Barocks (Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft 3; New York 1928). r. eitner, Quellen-Lexikon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten (Leipzig 1900–04; New York n.d. 1947) 10:72–75. r. l. poole and f. t. arnold, Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. e. blom, (5th ed. London 1954) 8:760–761. f. mompellio, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. f. blume, (Kassel-Basel 1949–). g. reese, Music in the Renaissance (rev. ed. New York 1959). m. f. bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (New York 1947). f. mompellio, "Lodovico Viadana" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 19, ed. s. sadie (New York 1980) 692–693. d. m. randel, ed., The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996) 948. n. slonimsky, ed. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Eighth Edition (New York 1992) 1959. j. j. soluri, "The Concerti ecclesiastici of Lodovico Grossi de Viadana" (Ph.D. diss. University of Michigan, 1967). l. da viadana, "Preface to 'One Hundred Sacred Concertos, op. 12'." In Strunk's Source Readings in Music History, vol. 4: The Baroque Era, rev. ed. l. treitler, (New York 1998) 109–113.

[j. g. domer]