Giovanni Antonio Terzi

Giovanni Antonio Terzi
(fl Bergamo, c1580–1600). Italian lutenist and composer. Terzi’s output comprises two large collections of lute music published in Venice by Amadino in 1593 (dedicated to Bartolomeo Fino) and Vincenti in 1599 (dedicated to Sillano Licino).

Both collections contain compositions in a wide variety of genres including fantasias, French, Italian and German dances, and intabulations of motets, madrigals, chansons and ensemble music. The second book also contains transcriptions of ‘canzonette a 3, 4, & 5 voci, con le sue parole’, with texts printed beneath the tablature. Terzi’s arrangements of motets and madrigals closely resemble the intabulations of Vincenzo Galilei (Fronimo, Florence, 1584) in reproducing all the voices of the vocal original. Many of these intabulations are technically demanding, with thick textures and the clever use of chord formations in high positions that include the stopped seventh course. Terzi also arranged madrigals and chansons by Palestrina, Striggio, Ingegneri, Lassus and Willaert as duets for two lutes, pitched either at the unison or a fourth apart; the first lute part contains a literal intabulation of the madrigal and can be played on its own, while the second lute part (‘contrapunto’) proceeds in a florid improvisatory style. Some of the second lute parts are labelled as suitable for performance ‘in concerto’, perhaps meaning that this part could also be used in a performance of the vocal original. Terzi appended a similar designation to his arrangement of Striggio’s Chi farà fede for bass lute, made ‘in the style of the viola bastarda’ (division viol) and displaying an idiomatic arpeggiation of chords. Among the intabulations of instrumental music are 11 four-voice canzonas by Florentio Maschera (Brescia, 1584) and three canzonas by Claudio Merulo arranged as duets. The 1599 book closes with a canzona in double choir style scored for four lutes, using two pairs of instruments tuned a fourth apart.