Biagio Marini facts for kids

Biagio Marini (born February 5, 1594 – died March 20, 1663) was a very skilled Italian violin player and composer. He lived in the first half of the 1600s. He was known for his amazing playing and for creating new ways to write music for the violin.

Marini was born in Brescia, Italy. He might have learned music from his uncle, Giacinto Bondioli. His music was printed and became very popular across Europe. Biagio Marini traveled a lot during his life. He worked in many cities like Brussels, Neuburg an der Donau, and Düsseldorf. In Italy, he worked in Venice (where he joined Monteverdi's group at St. Mark's Cathedral), Padua, Parma, Ferrara, Milan, Bergamo, and his hometown, Brescia. He had five children and was married three times. He passed away in Venice.

Marini's Musical Innovations

Even though Biagio Marini wrote both songs for voices and music for instruments, he is most famous for his new ideas in instrumental music. He helped the violin become a more important instrument. He made the violin's playing range bigger, allowing it to play higher and lower notes.

Marini also added new playing techniques to his music:

• Slurs: These connect notes smoothly.
• Double and triple stopping: This is when a violinist plays two or three notes at the same time.
• Tremolo: This is a quick back-and-forth movement of the bow on a single note, making a trembling sound. Marini was one of the first to write this down in his music, like in his sonata called La Foscarina (from 1617).

He was also one of the first composers to ask for scordatura tunings. This means changing the normal tuning of the violin strings to create different sounds. Marini explored many unusual ways to compose music. For example, he wrote an entire sonata without a cadence. A cadence is like a musical ending point. His Sonata senza cadenza (Sonata without a cadence) kept going without a clear stop!

Sadly, some of his music has been lost over time. But the music that still exists shows how creative he was. It also shows his beautiful melodies, bold harmonies, and how he helped music move towards the modern system of tonality (how notes fit together). Besides violin music, he also wrote pieces for instruments like the cornett, dulcian, and sackbut.

His Legacy

Today, musicians like the British violinist Andrew Manze help keep Marini's music alive. Andrew Manze has released a CD called Curiose e moderne inventioni which features Marini's music for string instruments.

Surviving Published Works

Biagio Marini wrote many collections of music during his life. Here are some of his published works:

• Op. 1 Affetti musicali (1617)
• Op. 2 Madrigali e symfonie (1618)
• Op. 3 Arie, madrigali et corenti (1620)
• Op. 5 Scherzi e canzonette
• Op. 7 Per le musiche di camera concerti
• Op. 8 Sonate, symphonie…e retornelli (1629)
• Op. 13 Compositioni varie per musica di camera
• Op. 22 Per ogni sorte di strumento musicale diversi generi di sonate, da chiesa, e da camera (1655)

See also

• Extended technique
• Playing the violin