Giaches de Wert

Giaches de Wert (also Jacques/Jaches de Wert, Giaches de Vuert; 1535 – 6 May 1596) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active in Italy. Intimately connected with the progressive musical center of Ferrara, he was one of the leaders in developing the style of the late Renaissance madrigal. He was one of the most influential of late sixteenth-century madrigal composers, particularly on Claudio Monteverdi, and his later music was formative on the development of music of the early Baroque era.

Little is known about his early life, except that he was from Flanders, from either the vicinity of Ghent or Weert, near Antwerp. As a boy he went to Avellino in southern Italy, near Naples, where he became a choir boy in the chapel of Maria di Cardona, Marchesa of Padulla. Maria was the wife of Francesco d'Este, Marchese di Massalombarda, a captain under Charles V; Francesco was a son of the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, and her husband Alfonso I d'Este. Francesco was often in France and adjacent areas on military campaigns, and as an adjunct to these adventures he brought musically talented youths back to Italy with him. Wert's association with the Este family was to endure through most of his life.

Sometime before 1550 he began his association with the Gonzaga family. Most likely around 1550 he moved to Novellara, a town in what is now the Province of Reggio Emilia, as a musician in the service of a branch of the Gonzagas; a previous suggestion that he may have been in Rome has not been securely established. Novellara in the mid-sixteenth century was a significant musical center under its local branch of the Gonzaga family. Alfonso I built a theatre and staged dramatic performances at his castle, with his young Flemish choirmaster in charge.

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