Alessandro Striggio

Alessandro Striggio was born in Mantua, though the precise date is unclear: Wikipedia has him born in 1536/1537, for example, whilst the New Groves has him 'c1540', which is what this site will take as 'the truth' on the matter! Birth details aside, he was one of the leading composers of madrigals and stage music in the second half of the 16th Century.

Though his birth date might be up for discussion, he was clearly born into an aristocratic family of some distinction, as the Duke of Florence (one Cosimo de' Medici) sent him as an ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I in England in 1567 for a fortnight. Furthermore, he became a marquis and was described at his death as a 'gran cancelliere' (head chancellor) of the Gonzaga court of Mantua. He married and had several children, including one also called Alessandro Striggio (who thus tends to get called 'Striggino' to distinguish him from his father).

By the 1560s, therefore, Striggio had established himself as the principle composer of the Medici court of Florence, meaning he became responsible for writing music for impressive state occasions (such as the marriage of Joanna of Austria to Francesco de' Medici in 1565, or the baptism of their first child in 1568). As the 1570s progressed, the Medici court became less interested in music and Striggio's interest likewise moved away from Florence, to Munich in the late 1570s and thereafter to Ferrara in the mid 1580s.

All his music involves voices, though sometimes with instrumental accompaniment. He is probably most well-known for Ecce beatam lucem, a motet written for 40 voices, and which was a likely inspiration for Thomas Tallis' Spem in allium, a similarly 40-part motet. Indeed, it's thought that Striggio may have had the music for that motet with him when he was on his English trip in 1567. A mass setting for sixty voices was thought to have been lost, but was re-discovered by Davitt Moroney as mis-catalogued in the Bibliothèque nationale de France: the Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno. It was performed at a BBC Promenade Concert in 2007.

There is no known portrait of Striggio, so this site uses one of its two 'anonymous' images to depict him instead.