Francesco Soriano

In 1581 he moved to Mantua, taking a position at the Gonzaga court there; but in 1586 he moved back to Rome where he spent the rest of his life working as choirmaster at three separate churches, including the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter's.

Stylistically, Soriano's music is much like Palestrina's, but shows some influence from the progressive trends prevalent around the turn of the century.

He adopted the polychoral style, while retaining the smooth polyphonic treatment of Palestrina, and he had a liking for homophonic textures, which generally made it easier to understand the sung text.

He wrote masses, motets (some for eight voices), psalms (one collection, published in Venice in 1616, is for 12 voices and basso continuo), settings of the Passion according to each of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Marian antiphons, and several books of madrigals.

In some ways they are a predecessor of the oratorio, mixing solo voice, chorus, and non-acted character roles, but in a style more related to Palestrina than to anything Baroque.