Everything about Nicolaus Zacharie totally explained
Nicolaus Zacharie (c.
1400 or before –
1466) was an
Italian composer of the early
Renaissance. Until recently he'd been confused with the earlier composer
Zacara da Teramo, but recent research has established his identity; he was one of a few native Italian composers working in the early
15th century whose work has survived.
Life
He was probably from
Brindisi or somewhere nearby, on the evidence of papal archives. The earliest solid record of his life is
February 7, 1420, when he was employed at
Florence Cathedral as a singer; on the evidence of his motet
Letetur plebs, which includes the comment in the score "composed in
Taranto, in a great hurry" it's presumed he was already active as a composer prior to coming to Florence in 1420. Just a few months later — June 1 —
Pope Martin V hired him during a trip to Florence, taking him back to the papal choir in
Rome, probably in September when he returned there, having successfully ended the
Western Schism a few years before. Zacharie remained in the choir until 1424, and after an absence of ten years joined again for a few months in 1434; his whereabouts between those two periods is unknown.
At the end of his life he was a chaplain at the church of Santa Maria in
Ceglie Messapico, about 40 km west of Brindisi in the far southeast of Italy.
Music
Only three works by Zacharie have survived with reliable attribution: two
motets and a secular song, a
ballata. The longest is the motet
Letetur plebs. It begins with a long passage in
imitation, but the rest of the composition uses none at all. As is true of much music from southern and central Italy of the
quattrocento, there's very little French influence; the influence of the
ars subtilior isn't to be found in Zacharie's surviving music.
On stylistic evidence, all three of his surviving compositions were probably written around the same time, most likely between 1415 and around 1430.
Works
- Et in terra pax (3 voices)
- Letetur plebs fidelis/Pastor qui revelavit (4 voices)
- Già per gran nobeltà trihumpho et fama (2 voices) (ballata)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Nicolaus Zacharie'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://nicolaus_zacharie.totallyexplained.com">Nicolaus Zacharie Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
