Benedetto Pallavicino

A prolific composer of madrigals, he was resident at the Gonzaga court of Mantua in the 1590s, where he was a close associate of Giaches de Wert, and a rival of his younger contemporary Claudio Monteverdi.

While little is known about his early life, a mid-17th century document by Cremonese writer Giuseppe Bresciani indicates he served as an organist at several churches in the Cremona region while young, and it is possible he studied with Marc' Antonio Ingegneri, the same man who was the teacher of Monteverdi.

[4] That considerable animosity existed between the two composers has been inferred from contemporary writings, particularly the exchange of letters following Giovanni Artusi's famous attacks on Monteverdi's style in 1600 and 1603, as well as the habit both men had of taking madrigals written by the other, and "improving" them.

His son was a monk of the Camaldolese order of San Marco, and published several volumes of his father's work posthumously, including his seventh and eighth book of madrigals.

Unlike Monteverdi, for whom it was a defining characteristic of his polyphonic madrigals, Pallavicino generally ignored the possibilities for dramatic characterization inherent in the texts he set, especially in his earlier books.

This was the period in which the precursors of opera were being written, and one of the prominent madrigalian trends was to take dialogue, monologue, or straight narrative texts and set them with appropriate characterization.

[2] It is in his sixth book of madrigals, published in 1600, the year traditionally (and arbitrarily) marking the end of the musical Renaissance, that his shift to the new style of the seconda pratica is most prominent.

It is also in this book that he uses some of the musical devices that were to make Monteverdi famous, such as the unprepared dissonance that so horrified Artusi, as well as previously forbidden melodic intervals such as diminished fourths; he also exploits cross relations for expressive effect.

His masses are for four to six voices, and in the conservative polyphonic style of the High Renaissance; they use the parody technique, and some are based on motets by Lassus and Giaches de Wert.