Background
Gioseffo Zarlino was born in 1517 in Chioggia near Venice, Italy.
Gioseffo Zarlino was born in 1517 in Chioggia near Venice, Italy.
Gioseffo Zarlino received his initial training in religion and music from Franciscans, whose order he entered as early as 1537. Although a promising priest and theologian at the age of 24, he nevertheless abandoned this calling in 1541 to study music with the world-famous Adrian Willaert, maestro di cappella of St. Mark's in Venice. Among his fellow students was Cipriano de Rore, who succeeded Willaert at the Cathedral.
In 1565 Rore relinquished the post to Zarlino, who held it until his death. Because of his position in one of the most important churches of Christendom, Zarlino wrote many Masses and motets for liturgical and devotional purposes. But he was also known for his numerous madrigals and secular music to celebrate political events, such as the brilliant naval victory of Lepanto (1571). Zarlino esteemed and emulated Willaert, crediting him with having the restored music to a level previously enjoyed only in classical times. Like his teacher, Zarlino wrote imitative polyphony in diatonic movement, with chromaticism reserved largely for the madrigals. Although 16th-century opinion considered Zarlino a talented composer, he was mostly known for his three works Le istitutioni harmoniche (1558), Dimostrationi harmoniche (1571), and Sopplimenti musicali (1588). The first treatise probably contains his most valuable thinking.
While vigorously opposed by his own student Vincenzo Galilei, he favored the Ptolemaic rather than the older Pytheagorean intonation. In his third treatise, Sopplimenti musicali, written in part as a reply to Galilei's attacks, he proposed for the fretted lute a form of equal temperament, commonly accepted only 2 centuries later.
Even while, or perhaps because, Zarlino was a conservative composer, he wrote the best critique of the music of his time and the age that led up to it. His insights and views had far-reaching results in later years, even though he took little part in the musical revolution inaugurated under his eyes by his own student and most formidable opponent, Galilei.