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Paolo Quagliati
1555 - November 16, 1628
born in Chioggia, Italy, composed during the Baroque period
Biography
The career of Italian composer Paolo Quagliati spans the period marking the end of the Renaissance and the early years of the Baroque period. Always a little out of step with the complex contrapuntal style and heavy chromaticism of the late Renaissance, Quagliati enthusiastically adopted the idiom of the "second practice," though stopped short at composing opera. Born into the minor nobility in Chioggia, he left for Rome at about the age of 19 and spent the rest of his life there. His earliest publications, dating from 1583 to 1588, are of secular canzonetti in a very light style for the period; Quagliati's earliest known sacred works appear in the 1590s, at the beginning of his long professional association with various churches in Rome as an organist and maestro di cappella. In 1594, Quagliati was made a Roman citizen; his 1606 madrigal comedy Il carro Fedeltà d'Amore was cited by its librettist Pietro della Valle as the first work of musical theater ever heard in Rome, although this claim is hard to prove or disprove. In 1608, Quagliati brought out his only book of madrigals, dedicated to Odoardo Cardinal Farnese and designed to be performed either by a group of voices or by a soloist with a small group of instruments.