Alfonso dalla Viola

He was the principal composer at the Este court in Ferrara for about four decades in the middle sixteenth century, and was renowned as a player of several instruments, including the viola d'arco.

His position as court composer in Ferrara paralleled that of Francesco Corteccia in the competing city of Florence.

Alfonso was one of a large family of musicians active at the court of Ferrara, including Andrea and his brother Zampaulo dalla Viola, active from the 1470s to shortly after 1500; Agostino, son of Andrea, a singer and instrumentalist who is documented from around 1497 to 1522; and the younger Alfonso and Francesco, whose exact relationship to the other three has not been firmly established.

[3] Dalla Viola was the Estense analogue in Ferrara to Francesco Corteccia, the leading musician to the Medici in Florence: both composed music for the sumptuous entertainments at their respective courts; both were early and prolific composers of madrigals; and both were succeeded, and overshadowed, by more famous musicians (Alessandro Striggio in the case of Corteccia, and Cipriano de Rore in the case of dalla Viola).

Some of his music is surprisingly chromatic, predating Rore by more than a decade, and his lines are attentive to text expression, and contain occasional word- or phrase-painting.