Agazzari, Agostino (EN)

Agazzari Agostino, *2 December 1578 Siena, †10 April 1640 Siena, Italian composer and music theorist. Biographical data on Agazzari is scarce and comes mainly from the dedications in his works. The first two volumes (1596, 1600) were dedicated to Sienese personalities; hence it is assumed that he stayed in Siena until around 1600. Earlier information about his stay at the court of Archduke Matthias Habsburg, later Emperor, has not been confirmed by any documents.

Between 1602 and 1606, Agazzari stayed in Rome as praefectus musicae at the Collegium Germanicum. At the same time, in 1606, he took up the position of maestro di cappella at the Seminario Romano, and in the same year he became a member of the Accademia degli Intronati in Siena, where he adopted the pseudonym Armonico. In 1607, he became maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Siena, where he probably remained until his death; all his publications from 1607 onwards are directly related to Siena. The assumptions that Agazzari knew Viadana personally, and was even his student, have not been confirmed; nevertheless, the repertoire of the Collegium Germanicum from his time shows that he held Viadana in high esteem.

Agazzari’s significance in the history of music is manifold. He was one of the most outstanding and earliest representatives of monody and the concertante style in the Roman school, and one of the first to formulate the principles of the new basso continuo practice. Like Viadana, he provided a number of guidelines and rules for musicians improvising basso continuo on a keyboard instrument. He assumed that the realisation of basso continuo should depend on the content of the composition’s text. Technically, he based improvisation on the rules of harmony and counterpoint, recommending a preference for contrary motion between the right-hand chords and the bass melody; he also explained an auxiliary system for figuring the bass line. 

Agostino also laid the foundations for modern instrumentation, dividing all instruments – based on their role in performing basso continuo – into fundamental and ornamental. The first group included primarily the organ and harpsichord, whose task was to lead and sustain the harmony of the ensemble; in small-scale or solo works, he assigned the same function to string instruments: the harp, lute and theorbo. He saw the role of ornamental instruments (lute, theorbo, harp, lyre, zither, spinet, guitar, violin, pandora) as embellishing and counterpointing the melody, which was supposed to enrich and perfect the harmony. Distinguishing clearly between string and wind instruments, he warned against the difficulties of tuning the latter with the whole ensemble.

Agazzari enjoyed great authority among his contemporaries in the field of basso continuo practice. In addition, as early as 1607, A. Banchieri mentioned Del sonare in his preface to Ecclesiastiche sinfonie, describing it as indispensable for learning accompaniment. In 1609, Banchieri included Agazzari’s Copia d’una lettera in his Conclusioni; M. Praetorius extensively referred to Del sonare in Part III of Syntagma musicum (1619).

He was also one of the first creators of recitative in dramatic music. With his Eumelio (1606), Agazzari introduced a different, more melodious type of recitative compared to the recitatives of Florentine monodists. Furthermore, in verse texts, he created a recitative melody for only one verse, allowing for improvisation of variations when performing subsequent verses; he changed the melody only when there were clear emotional changes in the text. In the course of the drama, he associated repeated melodic phrases with individual characters in the drama.

In sacred music, which constituted a significant part of his oeuvre, Agazzari practised both the stile nuovo and the post-Palestrina stile antico in equal measure. He developed, in particular, small-scale vocal-instrumental church concertos, using instruments primarily in the basso continuo. Although in his theoretical writings Agazzari strongly advocated the subordination of music to the verbal text, he did not fully apply this principle in his compositions. It should also be emphasised that Agazzari’s oeuvre has not yet been fully studied.

Literature: A. Adrio Die Anfänge des geistlichen Konzerts, Berlin 1935; G. Barblan Contribuzioni ad una biografia critica di A. Agazzari, “Collectanea Historiae Musicae” II, Florence 1956; G. Rose Agazzari and the Improvising Orchestra, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XVIII, 1965; M.F. Johnson Agazzari’s “Eumelio”, a “Dramma pastorale”, “The Musical Quarterly” LVII, 1971; M. Materassi Teoria e pratica del “suonare sopra ‘l basso ” nel primo seicento, “Il Fronimo” VII, 1979; K.G. Feilerer A. Agazzaris “Musica ecclesiastica” 1638, in: Ars musica, musica scientia, Festschrift for H. Hüschen, ed. D. Altenburg, Cologne 1980; K.G. Feilerer Zur “Sacra Rappresentazione”, in Festschrift for M.E. Brockhoff, ed. G. Berkemeier and I.M. Weineck, «Beiträge zur westfälischen Musikgeschichte» XVII, Hagen 1982; G. Dixon A. Agazzari (1578–after 1640). The Theoretical Writings, “Research Chronicle” XX, 1986/87; G. Morini Cenni sul basso continuo in Italia nel XVII secolo, in: «Studi corelliani» IV, ed. P. Petrobelli and G. Staffieri, “Quaderni della Rivista Italiana di Musicologia” XXII, Florence 1990; C. Reardon A. Agazzari and Music at Siena Cathedral, 1597–1641, «Oxford Monographs on Music», New York 1993.