Biagio Marini (5 February 1594 – 20 March 1663) was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer in the first half of the seventeenth century.
He traveled throughout his life, and occupied posts in Brussels, over thirty years in Neuburg an der Donau and Düsseldorf, and Venice in 1615,[clarification needed] joining Monteverdi's group at St. Mark's Cathedral,[1] Padua, Parma, Ferrara, Milan, Bergamo, and Brescia in Italy.
He contributed to the early development of the string idiom by expanding the performance range of the solo and accompanied violin and incorporating slur, double and even triple stopping, and the first explicitly notated tremolo (in the sonata La Foscarina, op.
At least some, and perhaps a great deal, of his output is lost, but that which survives exhibits his inventiveness, lyrical skill, harmonic boldness, and growing tendency toward common practice tonality.
[1] One latter-day champion of Marini's music is the British violinist Andrew Manze, who has released a disc on the Harmonia Mundi label entitled Curiose e moderne inventioni devoted to Marini's music for strings.