Stefano Bernardi

Stefano Bernardi
Title page of Bernardi's Secondo libro de madrigali a cinque voci, Venice 1616
Born18 March 1580
Died(1637-02-15)15 February 1637
Occupations
  • Priest
  • Composer
  • Music theorist
Organizations

Stefano (or Steffano) Bernardi (18 March 1580 – 15 February 1637), also known as "il Moretto", was an Italian priest, composer and music theorist.[1] Born in Verona and maestro di cappella at the Verona Cathedral from 1611 to 1622, he later moved to Salzburg, where he was responsible for the music at the Salzburg Cathedral and composed a Te Deum for 12 choirs performed at the cathedral's consecration in 1628.

Bernardi's career spanned the transition from late Renaissance music to early Baroque, with some of his works in the polyphonic style of Palestrina and others in the new concertato style.[2] He composed both sacred and secular music, including several masses and motets as well as sinfonias and three books of madrigals. He also wrote a treatise on counterpoint published in 1615.

  1. ^ Magnabosco (2007) p. 23. There is considerable variation in Bernardi's birth date given in various sources. Magnabosco provides an exact death date but gives the birth date as ca. 1575. Other Italian sources, such as Gatti and Basso (1968) give it as ca. 1576, while Marionni (2004) gives it as 1577 or 1578. Austrian sources, e.g., Heinisch (1991) and Schimek (1995) give it as 1577. Note that English language sources, e.g., Roche and Roche, Arnold (1983), and Randel (1996) give his birth date as the improbably late ca. 1585 and his death date and place as "1636?, probably Salzburg".
  2. ^ Roche and Roche