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Cipriano de Rore
1515 - September 1565
born in Flanders, composed during the Renaissance period
Biography
He was known while still alive as il divino Cipriano. He directed two of the finest musical chapels in Italy. Aristocrats across Europe -- the Emperor Charles V, the Count of Egmont, Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria -- asked him to compose for them. His music not only provided one of the first single-composer madrigal prints ever, but it was also republished after his death for an astonishing 40 years. A generation of madrigal composers looked to him for inspiration, and no less a figure than Giulio Cesare Monteverdi named him as innovator of the secunda prattica, the foundation of the Baroque style. This was Cipriano de Rore, truly a musical legend in his own time.

Rore was born to a minor noble family in Flemish Ronse (Renaix). Very little information survives about his early education, musical or otherwise. By 1542, however, he had moved from the Low countries to Italy (specifically Brescia), seeking musical fame. He might have studied with Willaert at Venice's San Marco; he quickly became familiar with the man and his "circle." By the early 1540s, he was already composing heavily in both motets and madrigals; the dedications of several works indicate his ambition to serve some great Italian court.