Asola, Asula, Giovanni Matteo, Giammateo, *before 1533 Verona, †1 October 1609 Venice, Italian composer. Between 1546 and 1569, or until 1570, he was a member of the Congregazione dei Canonici Secolari San Giorgio in Alga; between 1571 and 1575, he served as a diocesan priest at the church of Santa Maria in Organo, and between 1575 and 1577 at the church of San Giorgio in Braida in Verona, where he probably studied composition with V. Ruffo. In 1577, he became maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Treviso, and from 1578 at the cathedral in Vicenza. He probably settled in Venice as early as 1582, where he worked at the church of San Severo from 1588 to 1590, and possibly until his death, with a break for a stay in Verona in 1590–91.
Asola’s prolific output is conservative in nature, while at the same time demonstrating a mastery of the art of composition. A seasoned musician, he zealously implemented the ideas of the Council of Trent, all the while demonstrating a great understanding of the needs of his milieu. Hence the great popularity of his works. Some of Asola’s collections, compiled for liturgical purposes, have seen 7, 8, and even 12 editions; further evidence of the popularity and enduring presence of Asola’s works in musical life can be found in the two copies of his motets and masses from the second half of the 17th century and the 18th century, preserved anonymously in the manuscripts of Wawel Cathedral. Asola’s earliest collections (from 1570–73) contain 5- and 6-voice works, but from 1573 onwards, two-choir works (“8 vocibus infractis”) also appear. In ensembles, the set of voices “a voce piena” is as common as “a voci pari” (usually low, but in the collection dedicated to a nun, for example, they are high voices), and often both sets are combined in polychoral works. Asola added a basso seguente part for organists to two prints (1600 and 1602). He arranged the texts of psalms, canticles and hymns in their entirety or every other verse (stanza), envisaging alternatim performance. The collection of falsi bordoni provides an interesting insight into the performance practice of the time, which was rarely recorded in writing.
Literature: F. Caffi Della vita e delle opere di Giammateo Asola, musurgo veneto celeberrimo, Padua 1862; G. d’Alessi La Cappella Musicale del Duomo di Treviso, Vedelago 1954; G. Mantese Storia musicale vicentina, Vicenza 1956; D. Fouse The Sacred Music of Giammateo Asola, thesis, University of North Carolina, 1960; E. Paganuzzi Notizie biografiche sul primo periodo veronese di Giovanni Matteo Asola, “Vita veronese” XXI, 1968; B. Meier Zur Modalität der “ad equales” disponierten Werke klassischer Vokalpolyphonie, in: Festschrift Georg von Dadelsen zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. T. Kohlhase and V. Scherliess, Neuhausen 1978; M. Wojewoda Zbiór “Sacrae cantiones” Giovanniego Matteo Asoli i jego recepcja na Wawelu, master’s thesis, Jagiellonian University, 1997 (contains a transcription of 34 motets); P. Poźniak Presenza di Giovanni Matteo Asola nei fondi musicali di Cracovia, in: Barocco Padano, 3, ed. A. Colzani et al., Como 2004; A. Carver Cori spezzati. The Development of Sacred Polychoral Music to the Time of Schütz, Cambridge 2009; A. Lovato Per un iter policorale veneto, in: Tesori della musica veneta del Cinquecento. La policoralità, Giovanni Matteo Asola e Giovanni Croce, ed. I. Fenlon and A. Lovato, Venice 2010; F. Pezzi Alcune osservazioni sulle tecniche compositive degli inni vespertini di Giovanni Matteo Asola, “Rivista Internazionale di Musica Sacra” XXXII, 2011; A. Brejta The Polychoral Technique of Giovanni Matteo Asola in his “Completorium Romanum”, in: La musica policorale in Italia e nell’Europa centro-orientale fra Cinque e Seicento, ed. A. Patalas and M. Toffetti, Venice 2012.
Compositions:
masses:
Missae tres…, Book 1, for 5 voices, Venice 1570
Missae tres…, Book 2, 6-głosowa, Venice 1570
Le messe (…) sopra li otto toni…, for 4 voices, Book 1 (4 masses in volumes 1–4 and Marian mass), Venice 1574, 1580, Milan 1586, Venice 1586, 1588, 1590, 1607; Book 2 (4 masses in volumes 5–8 and Messa pro defunctis, for 4 voices with second 4-voice choir ad libitum), Venice 1580, 1586, 1587, 1596
Messa pro defunctis…, for 4 voices, (the second ad libitum choir book has not been preserved), Venice 1576, 1585 (titled Messa per i morti…), Milan 1590
Missae octonis compositae tonis…, for 4 voices, Book 1, Venice 1586 (editions from 1578–81 have not been preserved), Milan 1590; Book 2, 1581, 1586, Milan 1590, Venice 1601
Missae duo, decemque sacrae laudes…, for 3 voices, 2nd edition Venice 1588, 4th edition 1593, 9th edition 1612, with added organ part – Venice 1620, 1624, Rome 1634
Missae tres…, for 8 voices, Books 1 and 2, Venice 1588
Missae quatuor…, for 5 voices, Venice 1588
Missae tres totidemque sacrae laudes, for 5 voices, Book 2, Venice 1591
Missae tres sacraque (…) cantio, for 6 voices, Venice 1591
Missae tres quatuorque Sacrae Dei Laudes…, for 6 voices, Book 3, Venice 1602
Missa defunctorum, for 3 voices, n.p.
propers:
introits
alleluia verses and others
3 collections for 4 voices, Brescia 1583, Venice 1598, 1598
offices:
cycle of Terce psalms for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1586
Vespers psalms and Magnificat, 4 cycles for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1574, 1578, 1587, 1597; 3 cycles for 6 voices, Venice 1576, 1593, 1599; one cycle for three 4-voice choirs, Venice 1590; one cycle for two 3-voice choirs, Venice 1599 (only tenor preserved from first choir, 1602)
cycle of Vespers hymns for 4 voices, 2 parts, Venice 1585
cycle of Vespers hymns for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1602 (second voice preserved)
compline:
one for 6 voices, Venice 1573
3 for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1575, 1583 (second choir, 1587)
1 for two 3-voice choirs, Venice 1598
1 for three 4-voice choirs, Venice 1599 (unique copy in BJ)
cycles for Holy Week:
words of Christ from the Passion of the Four Evangelists, for 3 voices, Venice 1583
Holy Week Office, Part 1, for 4 voices, Venice 1583, Part 2, for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1584
lamentations, improperia and others, for 3 voices, Venice 1588
Holy Week Office and passions, for 4 voices, Venice 1595
words of Christ from the Passion of the Four Evangelists, for 3 voices, Venice 1595
lamentations for 6 voices, Venice 1602 (one voice preserved)
other sacred:
Sacrae camiones in totius anni solennitatibus…, 33 motets for 4 voices and a canon for two 4-voice choirs, Venice 1584
3 offices of the dead, for 4 voices, Venice 1586, 1588, 1593 (1621 edition expanded to include psalms and a funeral mass)
28 motets for 2 voices, Venice 1600
18 motets for two 4-voice choirs and organ, Venice 1600
10 motets for 3 voices included with a mass, 2nd edition Venice 1588
individual motets included in masses and other collections mentioned above, as well as in collective prints from 1586–1613
Le Vergini, sacred madrigal for 3 voices, text by Petrarch et al., Book 1, Venice 1576, Book 2, Venice 1584
sacred and secular madrigals:
for 2 voices (canons), Venice 1587
for 6 voices, Venice 1605 (one voice preserved)
for 4–6 voices in collective prints from 1584–1613
Asola also published:
4-voice schemes (his own and V. Ruffo’s) for singing psalms (falsi bordoni) and hymns, Venice 1575 (1584 edition expanded to include schemes of litany calls and 9 works for one and two 4-voice choirs)
Selected chant pieces in mensural notation for use by organists, Venice 1592
collection of 17 motets for 5 voices by 15 composers (including 3 of his own), dedicated to Palestrina, 1592
Editions:
psalm for 2 choirs and madrigal for 6 voices, Torchi “Acta Musicologica” II, 1897, reprint 1968
Le Vergini, ed. G. Vecchi, «Monumenta Veronensia» II, Bologna 1963
G. Asola Sixteen Liturgical Works, ed. D. M. Fouse, «Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance» I, New Haven 1964
