1590 in music

List of years in music (table)
... 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 ... 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 ... 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 ...
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Contents

Events

• October 16 – Carlo Gesualdo, Italian composer of madrigals, murders his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto.
• Approximate peak year of the late Italian madrigal style, as represented by Gesualdo, Luzzaschi, Monteverdi, Marenzio, Monte and others.
• The serpent is invented by Canon Edmé Guillaume in Auxerre, France – it was a common instrument in Western European churches for the next several hundred years.
• Baldassare Donato becomes maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice, taking over on the death of Gioseffo Zarlino.
• Claudio Monteverdi, Italian composer, is engaged as string player at court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua.
• Emilio de' Cavalieri, Italian composer, produces Tasso's Aminto, likely with his own music, for the Medici, at Carnival in Florence.
• Giovanni Gabrieli arranges the posthumous publication of works by his uncle Andrea Gabrieli, in Venice.

Publications

• Giovanni Croce – Mascarate piacevoli et ridicolose per il carnevale
• Giovanni Gabrieli publishes works in the cori spezzati style, in Venice.
• Orlande de Lassus, Franco-Flemish composer, publishes Neue teutsche, unnd etliche frantzösische Gesäng, a collection of secular songs for six voices, in Munich
• Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina publishes his fifth book of masses, in Rome.
• Orazio Vecchi publishes a book of motets for 10 voices, in Venice.
• Thomas Watson – The first sett, Of Italian Madrigalls Englished, published in London.

Classical music

• Hans Leo Hassler – Canzonette (published in Nuremberg)
• Claudio Monteverdi – Il secondo libro de madrigali a cinque voci di Claudio Monteverde Cremonese discepolo del Sig.r Ingegneri – (second book of madrigals a5) (published in Venice).

Births

• July 3 – Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana, singer, organist and composer (d. 1662)
• probable
  • Manuel Machado, composer (d. 1646)
  • Johann Schop, violinist and composer (d. 1667)
  • Loreto Vittori, Italian composer (d. 1670)

Deaths

• January 20 - Giambattista Benedetti, Italian scientist and music theorist (born 1530)
• February 4 – Gioseffo Zarlino, Italian music theorist and composer, maestro di cappella at St. Mark's in Venice (born 1517)
• September 20
  • Lodovico Agostini, Italian composer (born 1534)
  • Ascanio Trombetti, Italian composer (born 1544)
• probable – Maddalena Casulana, Italian lutenist, singer and composer (born c 1544)