Marc'Antonio Ingegneri

Marc'Antonio Ingegneri ( spellings also Ingegnieri, Ingignieri, Ingignero, Inzegneri; * 1535 or 1536 in Verona, † July 1, 1592 in Cremona ) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance. Although he spent most of his life in northern Italy, he is with Palestrina often considered a member of the Roman School of polyphonic church music because of its stylistic similarity. He is also famous as a teacher of Claudio Monteverdi.

Not much is known about his early life, but he probably had family from Venice, and he probably studied with Cyprian de Rore at Parma and at Vincenzo Ruffo in Verona. Sometime around 1570 he moved to Cremona and gained there a good reputation as a composer and instrumentalist. He may have been an organist and is detected as strings. In 1581 he became maestro di cappella of the cathedral there, and apparently he remained for the rest of his life in this position. During this tenure was Claudio Monteverdi his pupil, which was important for the transition to the Baroque period.

Ingegneri was a close friend of Bishop Niccolò Sfondrati, who later became Pope Gregory XIV, who is closely associated with the reforms of the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent, and this influence is present in his music, which is generally the simplification and clarity of Palestrina style shows. In fact, his book of 27 Responsoria long been falsely attributed to Palestrina. But some of his music ignored the reformist dicta of the council completely, most obviously his four- part motet Noe noe, an inverted double canon in which it would take a very powerful ear to to hear the text - and understanding of the text was one of the main demands that the Council of Trent presented to each composers of sacred polyphony.

His shows are simple, homophonic and relatively short, and exceed Palestrina often of clarity and simplicity. His madrigals tend to be more conservative, and frankly ignore the innovations of composers such as Luzzaschi and Marenzio, who experimented around the same time with vivid chromaticism and word painting.

He wrote two books of fairs, 1573 and 1587, at least three books of motets (some may have been lost ), and eight books of four - to six -voice madrigals.