(b ?Mantua, 19 Aug 1570; d ?Mantua, c1630). Italian composer. An instrumentalist, he had close links with the Gonzaga court at Mantua, though as a Jew he held a salaried position only intermittently. The majority of his vocal music, including five books of madrigals (1600-22) and some Hebrew settings (1622-3), is conservative in style, but his three-part canzonettas (1589) and especially his chamber duets (entitled Madrigaletti, 1628) are notably progressive. In his four instrumental collections (1607-22) he contributed to the development of the Baroque trio-sonata texture.
The guess that Salomone Rossi was born on the date given above comes from his publication of a set of canzonettas in 1589, its acrostic table of contents, and its frequent use of the number 19. But this is a number of guesses that have been made about Rossi. For instance, it has been claimed that Rossi's father was noted historian Azariah de' Rossi, which is strange since Azariah himself said in his biography (1573) that he had no surviving son. The musicologist Alfred Einstein advanced the theory that there were actually two composers named Salomone Rossi, but this had been discredited. While there are several musicians named Rossi in Mantuan history, Salomone Rossi does not appear to be related to any of them except for his sister, the famous singer who went by the stage name of Madama Europe.
What is most likely is that he spent his entire career in Mantua and was probably connected with or enjoyed the favor of the court of the Duke of Mantua. Rossi's first publication, the Canzonettas, was dedicated to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga and its first piece is dedicated to the Duke and his Duchess. Rossi also dedicated his next publication, a book of five-part madrigals, to Vincenzo. In addition, Vincenzo exempted Rossi from the requirement to wear the yellow badge that otherwise was mandatory for Mantuan Jews. This exemption was pronounced in 1606 and Vincenzo's successor, Duke Francesco II, renewed it only six days after inheriting the dukedom. However, while he often appeared at the court as a salaried occasional musician, it does not appear that he was ever appointed to a regular position there. For one thing, the regular musicians were also members of the cappella of the Church of Santa Barbara, which both sides would have felt incompatible with his Jewish faith.
Instead, he seems to have made his career as a member of various theatrical troupes in the city. These were primarily Jewish in their personnel, but played in court and among the Christian community. He was in demand: In 1612, the Prince of Mirandola asked to engage Rossi and his musicians to come to Mirandola to play for the visiting Duke of Modena. Rossi's last published work appeared in 1628 and there is no further documentation of his history, but in 1630 troops of the Holy Roman Empire conquered Mantua, following which the Mantua ghetto was destroyed and a severe plague struck the city. It is considered likely that Rossi died in one of these sad events.
Rossi was a leader in the new Baroque styles of music and the first to publish madrigals with basso continuo parts, although otherwise the style of the five-part counterpoint found in these books is rather conservative and, in fact, he published a set of four-part madrigals rather late. He wrote light vocal music, several important sinfonias and other instrumental music, and Jewish liturgical music, such as his Hashirim asher lish'lomo (Songs of Solomon) with 33 polyphonic settings of Hebrew texts. He is credited with leading the transition from the Renaissance form of the canzonetta (with a generally homogeneous texture) into the Baroque form of the trio sonata, with its textual distinction between the upper voices and the bass line. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi (Hebrew: סלומונה רוסי or שלמה מן האדומים) (Salamon, Schlomo; de' Rossi) (c. 1570 – 1630) was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.
As a young man, Rossi, who was Jewish, acquired a reputation as a talented violinist. He was then hired (in 1587) as a court musician in Mantua, where records of his activities as a violinist survive.
Rossi served at the court of Mantua, by request of the duchess Isabella d'Este, from 1587 to 1628 where he entertained the royal family and their highly esteemed guests. The composers Rossi, Monteverdi, Gastoldi, Wert and Viadana provided fashionable music for banquets, wedding feasts, theatre productions and chapel services amongst others.
Salamone Rossi probably died either in the invasion of Austrian troops, who destroyed the Jewish ghettos in Mantua, or in the subsequent plague which ravaged the area.
Rossi's sister, Madama Europa, was an opera singer, and possibly the first Jewish woman to be professionally engaged in that area. She is reported to have premiered Lamento d'Arianna of Claudio Monteverdi - in whose orchestra Rossi played violin - for the Duke of Gonzaga.
Music
His first published work (released in 1589) was a collection of 19 canzonettes, short, dance-like compositions for a trio of voices with lighthearted, amorous lyrics. Rossi also flourished in his composition of more serious madrigals, combining the poetry of the greatest poets of the day (e.g. Guarini, Marino, Rinaldi, and Celiano) with his melodies.
In the field of instrumental music Rossi was a bold innovator. He was one of the first composers to apply to instrumental music the principles of monodic song, in which one melody dominates over secondary accompanying parts. His trio sonatas, among the first in the literature, provided for the development of an idiomatic and virtuoso violin technique. They stand mid-way between the homogeneous textures of the instrumental canzona of the late Renaissance and the trio sonata of the mature Baroque. In 1600, in the first two of his five madrigal books, Rossi published the earliest continuo madrigals, an innovation which partially defined the beginning of the Baroque era in music; these particular compositions included tablature for chitarrone.[1]
Rossi also published a collection of Jewish liturgical music, השירים אשר לשלמה (Ha-shirim asher l'Shlomo, The Songs of Solomon) in 1623. This was written in the Baroque tradition and (almost) entirely unconnected to traditional Jewish cantorial music. This was an unprecedented development in synagogal music, as until recently polyphonic music in the synagogue had been forbidden following the destruction of the Temple. The biblical Song of Solomon does not appear within The Songs of Solomon, hence the name is probably a pun on Rossi's first name (Rikko 1969). Rossi set many Biblical Hebrew texts to music in their original Hebrew language, which makes him unique among Baroque composers. His vocal music resembles that of Claudio Monteverdi and Luigi Rossi, but its lyrics are in Hebrew.
Birnbaum, Eduard (1978) Jewish musicians at the court of the Mantuan dukes, 1542-1628, Tel-Aviv : Tel-Aviv University, Faculty of Fine Arts, School of Jewish Studies, 1978, c1975
James Haar, Anthony Newcomb, Glenn Watkins, Nigel Fortune, Joseph Kerman, Jerome Roche: "Madrigal", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
Harran, Don (2003). Salamone Rossi: Jewish Musician in Late Renaissance Mantua. Oxford University Press. 332 pages. ISBN 0198162715
Nettle, Paul and Theodore Baker (1931). "Some Early Jewish Musicians" in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 17, No. 1. (Jan., 1931), pp. 40–46. ISSN 0027-4631 .
Rikko, Fritz (1969). "Salamon Rossi, Hashirim Asher L'shlomo (The Songs of Solomon)" in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 55, No. 2 (Apr., 1969), pp. 269–275
Audio: Al Naharot Bavel (By the Rivers of Babylon), Psalm 137, from The Songs of Solomon.
Recordings
The Songs of Solomon, Volume 1: Music for the Sabbath. Pro Gloria Musicae PGM 108
The Songs of Solomon, Volume 2: Holiday and festival music Jewish sacred music from 17th-century Italy by Salamone Rossi, New York Baroque; Eric Milnes, Director. Troy, NY; Dorian, p2001
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