Girolamo Cavazzoni

Girolamo (Hieronimo) Cavazzoni (c. 1525 – after 1577) was an Italian organist and composer, son of Marco Antonio Cavazzoni. Little is known about his life except that he worked at Venice and Mantua, and published two collections of organ music. These collections only contain music written before about 1549, but are of high quality, and established the traditional form of imitative ricercars and canzonas. Life Practically nothing is known about Cavazzoni’s life. The approximate year of his birth can be surmised from his remarks in the preface to Intavolatura libro primo, the first collection of his music to be published. The volume was printed in Venice in 1543, and Cavazzoni informs the reader in the preface that he is “not much more than a boy” (anchor quasi fanciullo), which indicates Cavazzoni was around 17 at the time. Cavazzoni’s reputation must have been considerably high already at that time, since he was able to secure a privilege from the Venetian council to publish this collection. The second collection of Cavazzoni’s music, Intabulatura d’organo, carries no publication date (it appeared somewhere between 1543 and 1549) and contains no biographical details. By 1552 Cavazz