Simone Molinaro

Simone Molinaro
(b Genoa, c1570; d after 1633). Italian composer, teacher and lutenist. His father’s name was Bartolomeo.

Simone was the nephew and pupil of G.B. Dalla Gostena (murdered in 1593) whose second book of Canzonette (RISM 158913) includes his first published work. Several of Molinaro’s publications similarly included works by Dalla Gostena. In 1598 Molinaro was a canon of the Cathedral of S Lorenzo in Genoa. He became maestro di cappella there on 31 October 1601, a post from which he was abruptly dismissed in October 1617, possibly due to a serious illness, to which he referred in two letters of 1619. During his tenure at the cathedral he was entrusted with the musical education of a number of boys, for terms of as long as 12 years, and in 1618 some ‘alumni Simonis Molinarij ea scientia clarissimi’ were heard in Rome. From 1608 Molinaro was engaged, first as an extra musician and then, from 1609, on a permanent basis, by the prestigious Cappella di Palazzo; he became maestro in 1625. A visit to Naples from November 1609 to April 1610 may have led to his decision to publish in score form Carlo Gesualdo’s six books of five-voice madrigals (Genoa, 1603). Publication of his music ceased after 1616 (with the exception of a German contrafactum, almost certainly of an earlier work, published in RISM 162416), and there is almost no biographical information after 1625 apart from a legal document in Genoa in 1627, which could however refer to another man of the same name. He was still maestro of the Cappella di Palazzo in 1633, and he was alive in 1634 according to a census of clergy in Genoa; in a list of 1636 his name is replaced in the Cappella di Palazzo by that of the new maestro, G.P. Costa.