Life
Simone Molinaro was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance, born around 1570 in Genoa and died there in May 1636. He studied music with his uncle, Giovanni Battista Dalla Gostena, maestro di cappella at Genoa Cathedral; after Gostena was murdered in 1593, Simone Molinaro succeeded him in that post in 1599. That same year he published Intavolatura di liuto, one of the most highly regarded volumes of lute music to appear during the late Renaissance, containing works by himself and by his late uncle. Beyond his lute publications, he composed a substantial body of sacred choral music, much of it now incomplete due to lost partbooks, and he edited important editions of Carlo Gesualdo’s madrigals in 1585 and 1613.
Impact
Simone Molinaro’s 1599 Intavolatura di liuto stands among the finest late-Renaissance Italian lute anthologies, prized for its refined dance movements and fantasias built on strict imitative counterpoint. His Ballo detto il Conte Orlando achieved lasting fame far beyond the lute world after Ottorino Respighi arranged it in his orchestral suite Ancient Airs and Dances, carrying Molinaro’s melodic invention to a vastly wider 20th-century audience.
Repertoire
Ballo detto il Conte Orlando, 1599
A stately balletto later orchestrated by Ottorino Respighi in his Ancient Airs and Dances, Molinaro’s single most famous composition.
Molinaro: Ballo detto il Conte Orlando — Performed by Paul O’Dette · lute
Simone Molinaro (c.1565-1615) – Ballo detto il Conte Orlando — Performed by Caius Hera · lute
Fantasia Prima, 1599
The opening imitative fantasia of Molinaro’s 1599 lute book, demonstrating his skill in contrapuntal writing for the instrument.
Simone Molinaro – Fantasia Prima – Lute — Performed by Luthval · lute
Simone Molinaro – Fantasia I — Performed by Zoltan Hodossy · lute