From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
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
Births
Deaths