Alessandro striggio biography
Alessandro Striggio
Italian composer (c. 1536/1537–1592)
Alessandro Striggio (c. 1536/1537 – 29 February 1592) was an Italian composer, instrumentalist and diplomat of the Renaissance. He composed numerous madrigals as well as dramatic music, and by combining the two, became the inventor of madrigal comedy. His compositions include the monumental Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno for up to 60 voices, rediscovered in 2005 after being lost for 400 years.
His son, also named Alessandro Striggio,[1] wrote the libretto for Monteverdi'sOrfeo.
Life
Striggio senior was born in Mantua, evidently to an aristocratic family. Records of his early life are sparse, but he must have gone to Florence as a young man. He began working for Cosimo de' Medici on 1 March 1559 as a musician, eventually to replace Francesco Corteccia as the principal musician to the Medici court. In 1560 he visited Venice, and produced two books of madrigals in response to the musical styles I fagiolini.