Jonathan E. Glixon
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195134896
- eISBN:
- 9780199868049
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134896.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter focuses on the salaried musicians of the six scuole grandi during their most active period, 1500-1650. The singers, usually four or five in each ensemble for processions, were ...
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This chapter focuses on the salaried musicians of the six scuole grandi during their most active period, 1500-1650. The singers, usually four or five in each ensemble for processions, were increasingly drawn from the ducal chapel and important monastic choirs, and were paid an annual salary. Financial considerations and government restrictions sometimes reduced the number and prestige of singers. The scuole also paid lower salaries to groups of lower status singers to sing at funerals. Some scuole briefly employed wind bands for processions, but much more common were ensembles of stringed instruments, at first a mixed ensemble of lute, harp, and lira, and then, from 1530, a homogeneous ensemble of bowed instruments, a violin band, with four to six members. Some of the scuole also built and maintained organs and hired organists, while several employed choirs of priests for liturgical functions.Less
This chapter focuses on the salaried musicians of the six scuole grandi during their most active period, 1500-1650. The singers, usually four or five in each ensemble for processions, were increasingly drawn from the ducal chapel and important monastic choirs, and were paid an annual salary. Financial considerations and government restrictions sometimes reduced the number and prestige of singers. The scuole also paid lower salaries to groups of lower status singers to sing at funerals. Some scuole briefly employed wind bands for processions, but much more common were ensembles of stringed instruments, at first a mixed ensemble of lute, harp, and lira, and then, from 1530, a homogeneous ensemble of bowed instruments, a violin band, with four to six members. Some of the scuole also built and maintained organs and hired organists, while several employed choirs of priests for liturgical functions.
