( b Ferrara, ?1545; d there, 10 Sept 1607). Italian composer. He spent his whole life at Ferrara, probably studying under Rore among others. He served the Este court as a singer (1561) and first organist (1564), and was the duke's private composer by 1570; he was also organist at Ferrara Cathedral and the Accademia della Morte. After 1597 he probably served Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini. The leading musician at Ferrara in the later 16th century, he was best known in his lifetime as a keyboard player (Frescobaldi was among his pupils). His works include a book of madrigals for one to three sopranos with keyboard (1601), containing elaborate virtuoso pieces given at the duke's private concerts by the ‘singing ladies’ of Ferrara, a repertory long kept secret. Of his many influential five-part madrigals (7 bks, 1571-1604), some early ones recall Rore while later ones use rich colours and sonorous contrasts. A motet volume (1598) and a few keyboard works also survive.
The Italian composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi seems to have spent his entire life in Ferrara, not that there was any pressing compunction to leave since he was among the most prominent musicians there, making a three-tiered reputation as a first rank composer, virtuoso organist, and teacher. Luzzaschi's abilities at the keyboard were supposedly unrivaled; he's even said to have been able to handle Nicola Vincentino's unruly archicembalo. Few of his students are known, although they would have been numerous. The most significant among them was Girolamo Frescobaldi, who continued to praise him publicly long after Luzzaschi's death. Luzzaschi's most lasting influence was probably felt through his keyboard works, however. He was among the pioneers of purely instrumental, contrapuntal music. His works in this genre had influence far beyond his native city. Schools of instrumental composition based on his work were founded in both Naples and Rome.
Among his early teachers, Luzzaschi himself named Cipriano de Rore for composition, and he seems to have been the favored organ student of Jacques Brunel. May, 1561, marked the year Luzzaschi landed his unshakeable position in the d'Este court, becoming one of the organists there. Three years later, upon the death of Brunel, the then 19-year-old Luzzaschi became the head organist, the official position he was to keep for the rest of his life. Throughout the following years, Luzzaschi's duties at the court broadened until he was, for all intents and purposes, a second maestro di cappella alongside Ippolito Fiorini. He directed the court orchestras, trained the new musicians in his charge, and composed vocal and instrumental music for the court. Besides all this, Luzzaschi held the position of organist at the Ferrara Cathedral and at the Accademia della Morte.
The most historically significant period of Luzzaschi's life concerns his association with Duke Alfonso's musica da camera after 1570 in a series of exclusive, private performances. The star attractions in the cabinet were the celebrated "singing ladies" of Ferrara, among whom were three especially famous ones: Lucrezia Bendidio, Laura Peverara, and Tarquinia Molza. Bendidio was the former muse of poet Torquato Tasso and eventual wife of Niccolo Machiavelli. The ladies performed works from a repertoire developed especially for them and which was kept secret by Alfonso. Luzzaschi made important contributions to the repertoire of "secret music" and directed and played keyboard at the performances. His 1561 collection Madrigali per cantare et sonare a 1-3 soprani includes some of his music for the three ladies.
In 1597, fortunes shifted in Ferrara, leading to the fall of the d'Este house that had kept Luzzaschi in such a comfortable way for so long. He probably stayed in Ferrara to serve the new ruler, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, since he was part of Aldobrandini's retinue in Rome in 1601. Luzzaschi's death in 1607 was mourned by the entire musical community of Ferrara, which came out in droves to his funeral service and placed a gilded wreath of laurel upon his catafalque. ~ Donato Mancini, All Music Guide
Luzzasco Luzzaschi (c. 1545 – September 10, 1607) was an Italiancomposer, organist, and teacher of the late Renaissance. He was born and died in Ferrara, and despite evidence of travels to Rome[1] it is assumed that Luzzaschi spent the majority of his life in his native city.
As a pupil of Cipriano de Rore, Luzzaschi developed his craft and eventually came to be an influential pedagogue himself.
“The members of the Roman school, beginning with Ercole Pasquini and succeeded by Frescobaldi himself, were entirely trained by Luzzaschi. The neapolitians around Gesualdo and Macque admired and closely followed Luzzaschi’s work; some came north to stude with Luzzaschi personally.”[2]
In 1564, Luzzaschi was appointed as principle organist to the d’Este court. His facility as a keyboard player must have been paramount, for his competence on Nicolo Vincentino’s enharmonic archicembalo was actively documented throughout his career.
Luzzaschi is widely remembered due to his association with the famous Concerto delle donne, a private female vocal ensemble founded by Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara. In addition to his duties as court organist, as director for the ensemble he composed expert madrigals that required virtuosic vocal skill and advanced musicianship. Expressing a highly ornamented soprano line, his famous publication, Madrigali…per cantare, et sonare, a uno, e doi, e tre soprani of 1601 contained repertory performed by this expert troupe[3].
Luzzaschi’s surviving canon is limited to seven books of madrigals for five voices, the 1601 Madrigali publication, a collection of five-part motets and four remaining keyboard works. While reference to three books of four-voice ricercars by Luzzaschi indicates that he was actively composing instrumental work, the collections themselves appear to be lost[4].
^ Claude V. Palisca and Emilio de’ Cavalieri. “Musical Asides in the Diplomatic Correspondence of Emilio de’ Cavalieri,” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 49, No. 3 (1963) 353.
^ Anthony Newcomb. “Il Modo di far la Fantasia: An Appreciation of Luzzaschi’s Instrumental Style,” Early Music, Vol 7, No. 1 (1979) 34.
The Concise Edition of Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 8th ed. Revised by Nicolas Slonimsky. New York, Schirmer Books, 1993. ISBN 0-02-872416-X
