Simone Molinaro

Simone Molinaro (c. 1570 – May 1636) was a composer of the late Renaissance in Italy. He was especially renowned for his lute music. Life and career Molinaro was born in Genoa. He studied music with his uncle, Giovanni Battista Dalla Gostena, who was maestro di cappella at Genoa Cathedral. In 1593, Gostena was murdered, and Molinaro succeeded him in his post at the Cathedral in 1599. The same year he published Intavolatura di liuto, containing lute works both by himself and by Gostena. In addition to his lute works, Molinaro composed a large number of sacred choral music, most of which does not survive completely because of missing partbooks. However, some five-voice motets have been preserved in the collections of Hassler and Schadaeus. Molinaro died in May 1636 in Genoa. Assessment In his dances for lute, according to Eitner, Molinaro “despises all counterpoint, and shows himself as a pure melodist and harmonist, but both in so simple and pretty a way, that they all have something uncommonly attractive”. Molinaro wrote at the time when, according to Paul Henry Lang, lute music was reaching its apogee. Along with Giovanni Terzi, Molinaro’s lute music introduces “a finished, gracef