Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi

Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi (c. 1554 – 4 January 1609) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. He is known for his 1591 publication of balletti for five voices. Career Gastoldi was born at Caravaggio, Lombardy. In 1592 he succeeded Giaches de Wert as choirmaster at Santa Barbara’s, Mantua, and served until 1605 under the Dukes Guglielmo and Vincenzo Gonzaga. According to Filippo Lomazzo, Gastoldi became choirmaster at the Duomo, Milan, afterwards, but other considerations seem to make this point doubtful. Works Gastoldi composed several books of madrigals, a variety of sacred vocal music, and a few instrumental works. Particularly noteworthy among his secular vocal works is his Quarto libro de’ madrigali a cinque voci (1602), which consists almost entirely of settings of texts from Battista Guarini’s hugely popular “pastoral tragicomedy” Il pastor fido (The Faithful Shepherd). According to Gastoldi himself, at least one of the pieces from this collection was included in a Mantuan court performance of the play in November 1598, which was staged as part of the festivities accompanying a visit of the queen of Spain. Balletti His two sets of balletti, a