Benedetto Pallavicino

Benedetto Pallavicino (c. 1551 – 26 November 1601) was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. 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 competitor of his considerably more famous contemporary Claudio Monteverdi.

He was born in Cremona in either 1550 or 1551. While little is known about his early life, a mid-17th century document by Cremonese writer Guiseppi 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. His older brother Germano was also a prominent local organist. The Gonzaga family employed Benedetto at Sabbioneta beginning in 1579 and probably lasting until 1581, first as a singer, and in 1583 he began service with the Gonzagas in Mantua, a musical center of immense importance in the last decades of the 16th century; he stayed there for the rest of his life. While there he associated with some of the most famous composers of the last two decades of the 16th century, people such as Giaches de Wert, Francesco Soriano, Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi, Francesco Rovigo, Alessandro Striggio, and Claudio Monteverdi. His relationship with Monteverdi, in particular, was to become one of considerable animosity.

A letter of 29 October 1583, preserved in the Biblioteca Comunale in Mantua, is the earliest surviving documentation of his service to the Gonzaga family. While in their service – first for Guglielmo Gonzaga, and then for Vincenzo, when Guglielmo died in 1587 – he made periodic trips to Venice in an official capacity, to examine singers at St. Mark's, and to supervise musical publications (since Venice was the center of music printing at the time, and other cities such as Mantua depended on their services). In 1589, likely dissatisfied at his low pay at the Gonzaga court, Pallavicino began seeking other employment, such as the position of maestro di cappella at Verona Cathedral; he was, however, unsuccessful, as the position went to Giammateo Asola.

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