Overshadowed by his contemporaries, Claudio Monteverdi and Heinrich Schütz, Valentini is practically forgotten today, although he occupied one of the most prestigious musical posts of his time.
"[1] In approximately 1604/5 Valentini was appointed as organist of the Polish court chapel under Sigismund III Vasa; his first published works are dated 1609 and 1611, when he was still in Poland.
He was involved in the production of the earliest Viennese operas and famously taught the young Johann Kaspar Kerll music, probably in the 1640s.
[2] Valentini's oeuvre consists for the most part of different kinds of vocal music: madrigals, masses, motets and sacred concertos.
The motet In te Domine speravi was one of the last ever compositions with a part written specifically for viola bastarda, a type of a tenor viol.
The Secondo libro di madrigali (1616) is (along with the 1621 Musiche a doi voci) among the most important of Valentini's secular works as it is the first published collection of madrigals which combined voices and instruments.
The 1621 chamber music collection, Musica di camera, includes pieces built on ostinato patterns such as the passamezzo, romanesca and ruggiero.