Everything about Salamone Rossi totally explained
Salamone Rossi [
Hebrew: סלומונה רוסי] (c.
1570 –
1630) was an
Italian violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian
Renaissance period and early
Baroque.
As a young man, Rossi, who was
Jewish, acquired a reputation as a talented violinist. He was then hired (in
1587) as a court musician in
Mantua, where records of his activities as a violinist survive.
Rossi served at the court of Mantua, by request of the duchess
Isabella d'Este Gonzaga, from
1587 to
1628 where he entertained the royal family and their highly esteemed guests. The composers Rossi,
Monteverdi,
Gastoldi,
Wert and
Viadana provided fashionable music for banquets, wedding feasts, theatre productions and chapel services amongst others.
His first published work (released in
1589) was a collection of 19
canzonettes, short, dance-like compositions for a trio of voices with lighthearted, amorous lyrics. Rossi also flourished in his composition of more serious
madrigals, combining the poetry of the greatest poets of the day (for example
Guarini,
Marino,
Rinaldi, and
Celiano) with his melodies.
In the field of instrumental music Rossi was a bold innovator. He was one of the first composers to apply to instrumental music the principles of
monodic song, in which one melody dominates over secondary accompanying parts. His
trio sonatas, among the first in the literature, provided for the development of an idiomatic and virtuoso
violin technique. They stand mid-way between the homogeneous textures of the instrumental
canzona of the late Renaissance and the trio sonata of the mature Baroque.
Rossi also published a collection of Jewish liturgical music, השירים אשר לשלמה
(Ha-shirim asher l'Shlomo, The Songs of Solomon) in 1623. This was written in the Baroque tradition and (almost) entirely unconnected to traditional Jewish cantorial music. This was an unprecedented development in synagogal music, as until recently polyphonic music in the synagogue had been forbidden following the destruction of the
Temple. The biblical
Song of Solomon doesn't appear within
The Songs of Solomon, hence the name is probably a pun on Rossi's first name (Rikko 1969).
Salamone Rossi probably died either in the invasion of
Austrian troops, who destroyed the Jewish ghettos in Mantua, or in the subsequent plague which ravaged the area.
Rossi's sister,
Madama Europa, was an opera singer, and possibly the first Jewish woman to be professionally engaged in that area. She is reported to have premiered
Lamento d'Arianna of Claudio Monteverdi - in whose orchestra Rossi played violin - for the Duke of Gonzaga.
Further Information
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