Arcadelt

Arcadelt, or Archadelt, Jacob (c. 1514-c. 1556), a Netherlands composer, of the early part of the Golden Age. In 1539 he left a position at Florence to teach the choristers of St Peter’s, Rome, and became one of the papal singers in 1540. He was a prolific church composer, but the works published in his Italian time consist entirely of madrigals, five books of which, published at Venice, probably gave a great stimulus to the beginnings of the Venetian school of composition. In 1555 he left Italy and entered the service of Cardinal Charles of Lorraine, duke of Guise, and after this published three volumes of masses, besides contributing motets to various collections. The Ave Maria, ascribed to him and transcribed as a pianoforte piece by Liszt, does not seem to be traced to an earlier source than its edition by Sir Henry Bishop, which has possibly the same kind of origin in Arcadelt as the hymn tune “Palestrina” has in the delicate and subtle Gloria of Palestrina’s Magnificat Quinti Toni, the fifth in his first Book of Magnificats.

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