Croce, Giovanni (EN)

Croce Giovanni, Ioanne a Cruce Clodiensis, also known as Chiozzotto after the town of Chioggia, *ca. 1557 Chioggia (near Venice), †15 May 1609 Venice, Italian musician and composer, priest. He studied music under G. Zarlino in Venice, where in 1565 he became a singer in the choir conducted by Zarlino at St Mark’s Basilica. In 1594, Croce became assistant maestro di cappella there, and from 1603 until his death he served as maestro di cappella. Between 1595 and 1605, during the reign of Doge H. Grimani, Croce was frequently commissioned to compose music for the spectacles organised.

Croce is one of the most outstanding representatives of the Venetian school and the first composer to introduce the concertante style into sacred music, which forms the bulk of his legacy. Generally speaking, Croce’s single-choir sacred works are stylistically closer to the works of Palestrina than to those of his contemporary Venetian composers; Croce even draws on techniques from the Netherlandish schools, as in the Magnificat (1605). His polyphonic music is written in a more contemporary style. In these works, the composer emphasises the simplification of polyphony, makes more frequent use of homorhythm, and ensures the fullness of sound of the entire ensemble. In his Book 1 of 8-voice motets (1594), he imitates the early style of G. Gabrieli; like G. Gabrieli, he also introduces instrumental parts without distinguishing them as separate parts; they merely duplicate the vocal parts. This collection marks the first time a score for organ, referred to here as a “spartidura”, was printed in the field of sacred music. It consists of the lowest voices of each choir (written on two staves; occasionally a sharp or flat is marked above the stave). Croce’s earlier scores, which he mentions in the preface to this collection, have not survived. Croce’s polyphonic choral works are typical of the Venetian style of the late 16th century. They are characterised by a varied sound of the choirs, and through their frequent alternation, they highlight the tone colour; the use of alternating metres is also characteristic, with odd metres often associated with homorhythm; each choir is accompanied by a separate organ.

In his final collection, Sacre Cantilene concertate (1610), Croce introduces a concertante technique that had by then become typical, demonstrating a higher level of development compared to the works of G. Gabrieli. Here, the composer employs 3–6 solo voices, a 4-voice ripieno choir and basso continuo, which, however, is still entirely dependent on the rhythm of the higher voices, in the style of Viadana’s basso continuo. Through a strict demarcation of solo and choral parts, based on the division of the text, Croce created a new type of church concerto that became very widespread in the 17th century; this is the so-called Venetian rondo concerto, in which the role of the refrain is played by a repeated passage of text performed by the ensemble in tutti, syllabically and homorhythmically, whilst the role of the couplets is played by passages for soloists in concertante style, richly ornamented, with frequent use of imitative duets transitioning into sequences of parallel imperfect consonances. Croce’s non-virtuosic solo parts feature a melody not yet liberated from the polyphonic structure.

Croce’s secular works are extremely diverse: ranging from 3–4-voice canzonettas, through 4–8-voice Mascarate and 5–6-voice madrigals, to the Sonetti penitentiali, which brought him great fame, were published in several editions, and were even printed in London in a Latin translation. Croce’s madrigals are sometimes described as conservative; the composer does not employ bolder harmonic solutions, but instead focuses on elegance and grace (grazia), hence the calm flow of the piece, even with more emotional texts. Croce achieves this style through diatonic melody, lively rhythm, and the contrast between vocal groups and polyphonic techniques, combined with a simpler homorhythmic texture which clearly predominates, and in the canzonettas even veers towards homophony. Often, the difference between a canzonetta and a madrigal is minimal in Croce’s work. 

The two surviving madrigal comedies, Mascarate piacevoli… and Triaca musicale…  (triaca being a universal remedy widely known in the Middle Ages), written to texts in the Venetian dialect, present a humorous, and at times satirical, gallery of characters from Venice and the surrounding area: a beggar, a fisherman touting his wares, a trader from Burano, a peasant from Friuli, as well as the so-called magnifici, or the Venetian aristocracy. Musically, these are a series of canzonettas conceived primarily as jokes, somewhat more technically complex than Croce’s madrigals, with a heavy use of folk motifs, parlando-style solos and word painting. Stylistically, they represent the same type as the analogous works of A. Striggio and O. Vecchi.

Literature: L. Torri Giovanni Croce, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XVI, 1906; A. Einstein The Italian Madrigal, 3 vols., Princeton 1949, reprint 1970; D. Arnold Giovanni Croce and the Concertato Style, “The Musical Quarterly” XXXIX, 1953; D. Arnold Croce and the English Madrigal, “Music and Letters” XXXV, 1954; D. Arnold Ceremonial Music in Venice at the Time of the Gabrielis, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association” LXXXII, 1955/56; L. Putz Die Tonsymbolik im Madrigalwerk Giovanni Croce, «Grazer Musikwissenschafliche Arbeiten» II, Graz 1976; D. Arnold Giovanni Gabrieli and the Music of the Venetian High Renaissance, New York 1980; D. Bryant The Cori spezzati of St. Mark’s. Myth and Reality, “Early Music History” I, 1981; D.J. Gustafson Giovanni Croce’s Mascarate piacevoli et ridicolose per il camevale. A Contextual Study and Critical Edition, thesis at University of Minnesota, 1992; L. Davey Giovanni Croce’s Poetic Choices, in: Il madrigale oltre il madrigale. Dal Barocco al Novecento: destino di una forma e probierni di analisi, ed. A. Colzani, A. Luppi, M. Padoan, «Contributi Musicologici del Centro Ricerche dell’Antiquae Musicae Italicae Studiosi Como» VIII, Como 1994; J.C. Bettley The Office of Holy Week at St. Mark’s, Venice, in the Late 16th Century, and the Musical Contributions of Giovanni Croce, “Early Music” XXII, 1994.