Talk:Simone Molinaro

Grove Dictionary article (from the 1907 edition, vol. 3)

MOLINARO, Simone, born at Genoa, was nephew and pupil of Giovanni Battista dalla Costena, whom he succeeded in 1599 in his office of maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Genoa. In 1613 he edited in score in one folio volume, the six books of chromatic madrigals of Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, which, as Ambros says, shows that these strange works had begun to be a subject of study for musicians. Of Molinaro's own publications, consisting of motets, sacred concertos with organ score, including some masses and magnificats, a book of madrigals and canzonets, hardly any are preserved complete, part-books being missing in nearly every case. A certain number of his motets for five voices have been preserved complete in the collections of Hasler (' Sacrae Symphoniae,' 1598) and Schadaeus (' Promptuarium,' 1611), from which Commer in modern times has reprinted ten. These are mostly quite simple and melodious on a harmonic basis, without anything of imitative counterpoint to speak of. But Molinaro is also known as a lutenist, and from his ' Intavolatura di liuto,' 1599, containing Saltarelli, Passamezze, and Gagliarde, and including twenty-five fantasias by his master Costena, Oscar Chilesotti has reprinted fourteen little pieces in modern notation in his ' Lautenspieler des XVI. Jahrhunderts' (Breitkopf & Hartel, 1891). In these pieces, as Eitner says, Molmaro despises all counterpoint, and shows himself аз a pure melodist and harmonist, but both in so simple and pretty a way, that they all have something uncommonly attractive (see Monatshefte, xxiv. p. 29). J. к. М.

Google Books link

Grover cleveland (talk) 22:18, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Molinaro despises all counterpoint? This opinion seems to me utterly deranged. Is any evidence offered, or is it an obiter dictum? What, for example, does the writer think is going on in Fantasia Nona? Paul Magnussen (talk) 01:36, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The qualification "in these pieces" would seem fitting for "Saltarelli, Passamezze, and Gagliarde". From the context it's not even clear whether Eitner is referring to Chilesotti's publication: does that selection include Fantasia nona? Sparafucil (talk) 07:25, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

No it doesn't (I have a very nice edition of the Chilesotti pieces translated back into lute tablature).

If Eitner's comment only applies to a few of the pieces, then, it would seem unfair for the main article to apostrophise Molinaro's whole œuvre because of it. Paul Magnussen (talk) 16:10, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Quite agreed about the main article! It would be nice to not just be guessing at the original context.... Sparafucil (talk) 21:24, 19 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]