Italian lutenist and composer of noble
birth, father of
Alessandro
Striggio (2)
. Worked as the principal composer at the court of Cosimo I de'
Medici, Duke of Florence from 1560 to 1574, his
responsibilities included writing intermedi for important state
occasions, including the marriage of Joanna of Austria and
Francesco de' Medici (1565) and the visit of Archduke Karl of
Austria (1569). He contributed music to many of the intermedi
supplied for Florentine festivities, such as that of 1565 in
which he collaborated with Corteccia. His activities during the
1570s are unclear; in 1579 he composed music for the
entertainment in honor of the Grand Duke Francesco's wedding
and for the anthology Trionfo di musica di diversi. In 1584, at
Alfonso II d'Este's invitation, he traveled to Ferrara; later
that year he returned to Mantua, where he was employed at the
Gonzaga court as a supernumerary musician, although he
continued to compose intermedi for the Medici.
Striggio's music for intermedi typically
contains a mixture of homophony and counterpoint, and many of
the works feature impressive antiphonal effects. Some of his
later madrigals are progressive in style, perhaps owing to his
contacts with Ferrara.His madrigal publications include lively
descriptive pieces such as the
Cicalamento delle donne al bucato
('The chattering of the women at the washtub'); he also wrote
some church music, including two Masses and a few motets.
One of his motets,
Ecce beatam lucem,
is extraordinary in that it is a forty-part work, written for
four choirs-one à 8, one à 10, one à 16,
and one à 6. All parts are provided with words. Although
a MS preserving the work dates from as early as 1587, the
document includes an organ bass (which is additional to the
forty voices). The composition itself dates from not later than
1568 (and therefore must belong to Striggio's Florentine
period), for Massimo Troiano tells us in his
Dialoghi
(1569) that it was performed that year at the marriage of Duke
William of Bavaria and Renée of Lorraine. He states,
moreover, that it was executed by eight
tromboni
,eight
viole da arco,
eight
flauti grossi,
one
instrumento da penna,
and one
liuto grosso.
Since by
"instrumento da penna"
is meant a cembalo, the bass part mentioned above was
presumably worked out at this instrument.