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ZARLINO, GIOSEFFO (1517-1590)

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 961 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ZARLINO, GIOSEFFO (1517-1590) , See also:Italian musical theorist, surnamed from his birthplace ZARLINUUs CLODIENSIS, was See also:born at See also:Chioggia, See also:Venetia, in 1517 (not 1540, as See also:Burney and See also:Hawkins say). Studying in his youth for the See also:Church, he was admitted to the See also:minor orders in 1539 and ordained See also:deacon in 1541 at See also:Venice; but he soon devoted himself entirely to the study of See also:music under the guidance of See also:Adrian Willaert, then choirmaster at St See also:Mark's. Willaert, dying in 1562, was succeeded by Cipriano di Rore, on whose removal to See also:Parma in 1565 Zarlino was elected choirmaster. Though now remembered chiefly for invaluable contributions to the theory of music, it is evident that he must have been famous both as a See also:practical musician and as a composer; for, notwithstanding the limited number of his printed See also:works, consisting of a See also:volume entitled Modulationes See also:Sex Vocum (Venice, 1566), and a few motets and madrigals scattered through the collections of Scotto and other contemporary publishers, he both produced and superintended the public performance of some important pieces in the service of the See also:republic. First among these was the music written to celebrate the See also:battle of See also:Lepanto (on the 7th of See also:October 157'). Again, when See also:Henry III. cf See also:France passed through Venice on his return from See also:Poland in 1574, Zarlino directed on See also:board the " See also:Bucentaur " the performance of an See also:ode for which he himself had composed the music, to verses supplied by Rocco See also:Benedetti and Cornelio Frangipani. The ode was followed by a See also:solemn service in St Mark's, in which Zarlino's music formed a prominent feature, and the festival concluded with the See also:representation of a dramatic piece entitled Orfeo composed by Zarlino. When the church of S. Maria della Salute was founded in 1577 to commemorate the See also:plague, he composed a solemn See also:mass for the occasion. No one of these works is now known to be in existence; the only example we possess of Zarlino's compositions on a See also:grand See also:scale is a MS. mass for four voices, in the library of the Philharmonic See also:Lyceum at See also:Bologna. He died at Venice on the 14th, or according to some the 4th, of See also:February 159o. Zarlino's first theoretical See also:work was the Istitutioni Armoniche (Venice, 1558; reprinted 1562 and 1573).

This was followed by the Dimostrationi Armoniche (Venice, 1571; reprinted 1573) and by the Sopplimenti Musicali (Venice, 1588). Finally, in a See also:

complete edition of his works published shortly before his See also:death Zarlino reprinted these three See also:treatises, accompanied by a See also:Tract on See also:Patience, a Discourse on the True date of the Crucifixion of Our See also:Lord, an See also:essay on The Origin of the See also:Capuchins, and the See also:Resolution of Some Doubts Concerning the Correction of the See also:Julian See also:Calendar (Venice, 1589).1 The Istitutioni and Dimostrationi Armoniche See also:deal, like most other theoretical works of the See also:period, with the whole See also:science of music as it was understood in the 16th See also:century. The earlier chapters, treating chiefly of the arithmetical See also:foundations of the science, differ but little in their See also:line of See also:argument from the principles laid down by Pietro Aron, Zacconi, and other See also:early writers of the Boeotian school; but in bk. ii. of the Institutioni Zarlino boldly attacks the false See also:system of tonality to which the proportions of the See also:Pythagorean tetrachord, if strictly carried out in practice, must inevitably See also:lead. The fact that, so far as can now be ascertained, they never were strictly carried out in the Italian See also:medieval See also:schools, at least after the invention of See also:counterpoint, in no See also:wise diminishes the force of the reformer's argument. The point at issue was, that neither in the polyphonic school, in which Zarlino was educated, nor in the later monodic school, of which his recalcitrant See also:pupil, Vincenzo Galilei, was the most redoubtable See also:champion, could those proportions be tolerated in practice, however attractive they might be to the theorist in their mathematical aspect. So persistently does the human See also:ear See also:rebel against the See also:division of the tetrachord into two greater tones and a Ieimma or hemitone, as represented by the fractions g, y, it ",l, that, centuries before the possibility of reconciling the demands of the ear with those of exact science was satisfactorily demonstrated, the Aristoxenian school advocated the use of an empirical scale, See also:sounding pleasant to the sense, in preference to an unpleasing tonality founded upon immutable See also:pro-portions. See also:Didymus, See also:writing in the See also:year 6o, made the first step towards establishing this pleasant-sounding scale upon a mathematical basis, by the See also:discovery of the lesser See also:tone; but unhappily he placed it in a false position below the greater tone. See also:Claudius See also:Ptolemy (130) rectified this See also:error, and in the so-called syntonous or intense diatonic scale reduced the proportions of his tetrachord to A,—i.e. the greater tone, lesser tone, and diatonic semi-tone of See also:modern music? Ptolemy set forth this system as one of eight possible forms of the diatonic scale. But Zarlino uncompromisingly declared that the syntonous or intense diatonic scale was the only See also:form that could reasonably be sung; and in See also:proof of its perfection he exhibited the exact arrangement of its various diatonic intervals, to the fifth inclusive, in every See also:part of the See also:diapason or See also:octave. The proportions are precisely those now universally accepted in the system called " just intonation." But this system is practicable only by the See also:voice and See also:instruments of the See also:violin class. For keyed or fretted instruments a See also:compromise is indispensable.

To meet this exigency, Zarlino proposed that for the See also:

lute the octave should be divided into twelve equal semitones; and after centuries of discussion this system of " equal temperament " has, within the last See also:thirty-five years, been universally adopted as the best attainable for keyed instruments of every description.3 Again, Zarlino was in advance of his See also:age in his See also:classification of the ecclesiastical modes. These scales were not, as is vulgarly supposed, wholly abolished in favour of our modern tonality in the 17th century. .Eight of them, it is true, See also:fell into disuse; but the medieval Ionian and Hypo-ionian modes are absolutely identical with the modern natural scale of C; and the Aeolian and Hypoaeolian modes differ from our minor scale, not in constitution, but in treatment only. Medieval composers, however, regarded the Ionian mode as the least perfect of the See also:series and placed it last in See also:order. Zarlino thought differently and made it the first mode, changing all the others to See also:accord with it. His numerical table, therefore, differs from all others made before or since, prophetically assigning the See also:place of See also:honour to the one See also:ancient scale now recognized as the See also:foundation of the modern tonal system. These innovations were violently opposed by the apostles of the monodic school. Vincenzo Galilei led the attack in a tract entitled See also:Ambros mentions an edition of the Istitutioni dated 1557, and one of the Dimostrationi dated 1562. The See also:present writer has never met with either. 2 We have given the fractions in the order in which they occur in the modern system. Ptolemy, following the invariable See also:Greek method, placed them thus--Ii, , ?D. This, however, made no difference in the actual proportions.

3 It was first used in France, for the See also:

organ, in 1835; in See also:England, for the See also:pianoforte in 1846 and for the organ in 1854. See also:Bach had advocated it in See also:Germany a century earlier; but it was not gene-rally adopted.

End of Article: ZARLINO, GIOSEFFO (1517-1590)

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