Antonio Mortaro

Antonio Mortaro
(fl 1587–1610). Italian composer. He became a Franciscan friar at Brescia in 1595, and by 1598 had taken the post of organist at the Franciscan monastery in Milan.

He was organist at Novara Cathedral in 1602, but returned to Brescia after 1606. He was one of the more important transitional church composers whose works span the pre-continuo and the continuo epochs, and his output also includes a large number of canzonets and some madrigals, and instrumental works, some in keyboard or lute tablature. The majority of his sacred music is for double or triple choir in the Venetian manner of the Gabrielis, although there are conventional polyphonic motets in the 1602 volume and five-part psalms with continuo in that of 1608 (in a more forward-looking style). The three-part motets, first published in 1598 and reprinted at least twice, in 1603 and 1610, are interesting examples of the developing concertato style. Written for two upper voices in equal range with a supporting bass voice, the 1598 publication includes a ‘partitio’ book in which the three voices are arranged in score for the keyboard player. In the 1610 edition this book is replaced by a genuine basso continuo part. This same trio texture is apparent in Mortaro’s four volumes of Fiammelle amorose, canzonets with a pleasing rhythmic gaiety, although here the upper voices are usually not equal. Whatever medium he chose, his works were popular and widely disseminated in anthologies over a 40-year period.