Galilei, Vincenzo (EN)

Galilei Vincenzo, *after 1520 Santa Maria a Monte (near Florence), buried 2 July 1591 Florence, Italian theorist and composer. It is thought that around 1540 he went to Florence to study music. As a lutenist, he caught the attention of Bernadetto de’ Medici and G. Bardi, among others, and subsequently established contact with the Florentine Camerata. Around 1562 he lived in Pisa, where he worked as a lute teacher. Supported by Bardi, before 1565 he studied with G. Zarlino in Venice, and subsequently with G. Mei in Rome. He also spent time in Messina and Marseille, where he became acquainted with Turkish and Moorish music. In 1568 he was in Venice in connection with the publication of the Fronimo Dialogo. In 1572 or 1574 he settled in Florence. Between 1572 and 1582 he exchanged over 30 letters on the subject of Greek music with G. Mei. In the final years of his life, Galilei engaged in, among other things, acoustic experiments and the critique of Zarlino’s writings. He was the father of the mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Another of Galilei’s sons, the lutenist Michelangelo, who published Il primo libro d’intavolatura di liuto… (Munich 1620), worked at the Bavarian court in Munich, and previously – according to K. Chłędowski – at the court of Krzysztof Radziwiłł, the Voivode of Vilnius. According to the same author, Galileo’s grandson, also named Vincenzo Galilei, was a teacher of singing and lute playing at a certain Polish princely court, whilst according to A. Poliński, he directed the court orchestra of Janusz Tyszkiewicz. This latter piece of information is repeated several times in Polish musicological literature with reference to R. Eitner’s Biographisch-Bibliographisches Quelleb-Lexikon, 10 vols., Leipzig 1899–1904, which, however, does not contain it.

Galilei was a leading theorist of the Florentine Camerata. In Dialogo della musica antica e moderna, he set out the principles of the monodic style. At the heart of Galilei’s views lay an interest in and reverence for antiquity. (In Dialogo…, he included three hymns by Mesomedes in their original notation.) The reform he advocated aimed to revive Greek music. He was a proponent of an expressive style that highlighted the expressive character of the text, which, in his view, could only be achieved in monodic music. For this reason, Galilei was critical of polyphonic music. In his writings, he devoted considerable space to criticising Zarlino. He opposed Zarlino’s view that the rules of music must be based on mathematical principles. Galilei took auditory experience and musical practice as his foundation. He advocated freedom in the use of dissonances and chromatic passages, regarding them as means of enhancing the expressive possibilities of music. He set out the principles of composition and lute intonation in the dialogue Fronimo, the second edition of which also contains 124 works by various composers (including Galileo’s own compositions).

Galilei’s compositional output consists mainly of lute pieces. The printed tablature contains tablature arrangements of 24 madrigals by various composers (including 7 by Galilei) and 6 ricercars by Francesco da Milano. In the manuscript, he included 12 suites consisting of a passamezza, a romanesca and a saltarella: each of these dances is composed of numerous variations (one of the romanescas has over 100); furthermore, this collection contains 56 galliards titled with female names from mythology and over 20 different dances by other composers. In the arrangements of the vocal works, care is evident to preserve the original structure with its linearity. Galilei’s madrigals employ the expressive devices he advocated: chromaticism and dissonant combinations. In some madrigals, a tendency towards homophony and declamatory melody is evident, bringing them closer to the monodic style.

Literature: O. Chilesotti Il primo libro di Huto di Vincenzo Galilei, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XV, 1908; O. Chilesotti Di Nicola Vincentino e dei generi greci secondo Vincenzo Galilei, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XIX, 1912; K. Chłędowski Rzym, ludzie baroku, Lwów 1912; O. Fleissner Die Madrigale V. Galileis und sein “Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna”, Munich 1922; A. Einstein V. Galilei and the Instructive Duo, “Music and Letters” XVIII, 1937, Italian translation “La Rassegna Musicale Italiana” XI, 1938; D.P. Walker Musical Humanism in the 16th and early 17th Century, “The Music Review” II–III, 1941–42, reprint «Herausgegeben von der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung» V, Kassel 1949; A. Einstein The Italian Madrigal, Princeton 1949, reprint 1971; J.M. Barbour Tuning and Temperament, East Lansing (Michigan) 1951; N. Pirotta Temperaments and Tendencies in the Florentine Camerata, “The Musical Quarterly” XL, 1954; C.V. Palisca V. Galilei’s Counterpoint Treatise…, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” IX, 1956; C.V. Palisca V. Galilei and Some Links between “Pseudo-monody” and Monody, “The Musical Quarterly” XLVI, 1960; C.V. Palisca V. Galilei’s Arrangements for Voice and Lute, in: Essays in Musicology, Festschrift for D. Plamenac, Pittsburgh 1969; D.P. Walker Some Aspects of the Musical Theory of Vincenzo Galilei and Galileo Galilei, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association” C, 1973–74; K. Berger Theories of Chromatic and Enharmonic Music in Late Sixteenth Century Italy, Ann Arbor 1979.