Rocco Rodio was an Italian Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and theorist

Music theory

Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...

, best known for his sacred works and keyboard ricercar

Ricercar

A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece...

es.

Biography

He was born in Bari

Bari

Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...

 and apparently led a cosmopolitan life, at some point working at the Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 court, and then possibly settling in Naples

Naples

Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...

. Popular among his colleagues, Rodio was a member of Carlo Gesualdo

Carlo Gesualdo

Carlo Gesualdo, known as Gesualdo di Venosa or Gesualdo da Venosa , Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was an Italian nobleman, lutenist, composer, and murderer....

's academy at Naples, organized a Camerata di Propaganda per l'Affinamento del Gusto Musicale together with other Neapolitan musicians, and also probably cultivated connections with Polish and Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 composers.

Rodio's work, both in music and in music theory, was progressive for its time and shows a competent composer. His treatise Regole di musica circulated widely both in Italy and outside its borders. Rodio's Libro primo di ricercate (1575) is the earliest surviving keyboard music notated in score. It contains five ricercar

Ricercar

A ricercar is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term means to search out, and many ricercars serve a preludial function to "search out" the key or mode of a following piece...

s and four fantasia

Fantasia (music)

The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....

s, all marked with a highly individual harmonic language. This print, together with Antonio Valente

Antonio Valente

Antonio Valente was an Italian Renaissance organist and composer. He was blind from childhood and served as organist of Sant'Angelo a Nilo in Naples in 1565–80...

's Intavolatura de cimbalo, represents the earliest works of the so-called Neapolitan school, to which later important composers such as Ascanio Mayone

Ascanio Mayone

Ascanio Mayone was an Neapolitan composer and harpist. He trained as a pupil of Giovanni de Macque in Naples, and worked at Santissima Annunziata there as organist from 1593 and maestro di cappella from 1621; he was also organist at the royal chapel from 1602...

 and Giovanni Maria Trabaci

Giovanni Maria Trabaci

Giovanni Maria Trabaci was an Italian composer and organist. He was a prolific composer, with some 300 surviving works preserved in more than 10 prints, and was especially important for his keyboard music....

belonged.

Music

• Missarum decem liber primus, masses for 4–6 voices (Rome, 1562)
• Libro primo di ricercate, keyboard works (Naples, 1575)
• Il secondo libro di madrigali, madrigals for 4 voices (Venice, 1587)
• Duetti (1589), lost
• Il primo libro di madrigali, lost
• canzonas, motets, and other pieces in manuscript copies

Writings

• Regole di musica di Rocco Rodio sotto brevissime risposte ad alcuni dubij propostigli da un cavaliero, intorno alle varie opinioni de contrapontisti con la dimostratione de tutti i canoni sopra il canto fermo (Naples, 1600)