Claudio Merulo

Claudio Merulo
(b Correggio, 8 April 1533; d Parma, 4 May 1604). Italian composer and publisher. He was the most gifted of a group of performer-composers who transformed European keyboard genres from simple pieces based on vocal models to idiomatic virtuoso works during the second half of the 16th century; also a prolific composer of madrigals, masses and motets in the mature Venetian style.