 | Lazaro Valvasensi Italie
Italian composer and organist. A priest, he worked in his native town as organist of SS Corpo di Cristo and of the Valvasone noble family. He also held similar positions in other towns in northern Italy. He was organist of Gemona del Friuli Cathedral, Friuli, from 19 June 1608 to 4 May 1609, and at Valvasone again at least from 1613. On 3 March 1617 he was elected maestro di cappella of Sacile Cathedral but resigned on 28 February 1619. In May 1622 he became organist of the cathedral of Marano Lagunare, Udine, but was back in Valvasone in 1623. Perhaps as early as 1624 he became maestro di cappella of Tolmezzo Cathedral and in October 1626 he was in Tricesimo as an organist. At the end of 1628 he returned to Valvasone and to his former posts as organist of SS Corpo di Cristo and of the Valvasone family, remaining there until his death. Before 1647 he became a canon penitentiary of Caorle, and later an apostolic protonotary.
Since the 1640 collection was Valvasensi's op.16 and only nine books survive (four incomplete), it is clear that much of his music is lost. Probably, as is the case with the surviving works, most of it was church music in the concertato style, suitable for, and in some cases dedicated to, the communities in which he worked. Opp.3 and 6, influenced by the seconda pratica, employ harmonic modulation and melodic virtuosity. Of the 23 monodies that form his op.8 the most interesting are three cantatas, two of them designated as such, the third Margarita, ben che m'aleti, in fact a strophic-bass cantata; the first two are through-composed, both with tempo directions (like another piece in the volume). The two-part canzonetta which concludes this book, Gioldin, gioldin, preserves a popular quatrain in Friulan dialect, which Valvasensi claimed to have heard two peasant women sing.
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