Salamone Rossi or Salomone Rossi (Hebrew: סלומונה רוסי or שלמה מן האדומים) (Salamon, Schlomo; de' Rossi) (ca. 1570 – 1630) was an Italian Jewish violinist and composer. He was a transitional figure between the late Italian Renaissance period and early Baroque.
Rossi was likely born on 19 August 1570 in Mantua. Some scholars like E. Werner claimed that he was the son of the distinguished historian Azariah de’ Rossi, however Azariah had no sons. Rossi spent his entire professional career in Mantua. As a young man, Rossi acquired a reputation as a talented violinist. He was then hired as a court musician in Mantua in 1587, where records of his activities as a violinist survive in the Gonzaga court.
Rossi served at the court of Mantua for 41 years, from 1587 to 1628 as concertmaster where he entertained the ducal family and their highly esteemed guests. The composers Rossi, Monteverdi, Gastoldi, Wert and Viadana provided fashionable music for banquets, wedding feasts, theatre productions and chapel services amongst others. Rossi was so well-thought of at this court that he was excused from wearing the yellow badge that was required of other Jews in Mantua. He also probably worked with a Jewish theatrical group, playing a significant role in Mantuan theatrical life in the ghetto, the Christian community, and at court. This is supported by Alessandro Pico, Prince of Mirandola, who requested that he along with his ‘his group of musicians’ be sent to Mirandola to entertain the Duke of Modena.
Rossi was probably not related to any of the other Mantuan musicians with the same surname, such as Mattheo Rossi. The only exception is Rossi's sister, Madama Europa. She was an opera singer, and possibly the first Jewish woman to be professionally engaged in that area. Like her brother, she was employed at the court in Mantua; she is thought to have performed in the intermedio Il Ratto di Europa, by Gabriello Chiabrera and Gastoldi, during the wedding festivities for Francesco Gonzaga in 1608. Europa disappeared after the end of the Gonzaga court and subsequent sack of the ghetto. Rossi himself died during the War of the Mantuan Succession, probably either during the invasion of Austrian troops, who defeated the Gonzagas and destroyed the Jewish ghetto in Mantua, or in the subsequent episode of plague which ravaged the area.
His first published work (released in 1589) was a collection of 19 canzonettes, short, dance-like compositions for a trio of voices with lighthearted, amorous lyrics. Rossi also flourished in his composition of more serious madrigals, combining the poetry of the greatest poets of the day (e.g. Guarini, Marino, Rinaldi, and Celiano) with his melodies. In 1600, in the first two of his five madrigal books, Rossi published the earliest continuo madrigals, an innovation which partially defined the beginning of the Baroque era in music; these particular compositions included tablature for chitarrone.
Rossi published 150 secular works in Italian, including:
Cor Mio, madrigal for 5 voices
Dir mi che piu non ardo, madrigal for 5 voices
In the field of instrumental music Rossi was a bold innovator. He was one of the first composers to apply to instrumental music the principles of monodic song, in which one melody dominates over secondary accompanying parts. His trio sonatas, among the first in the literature, provided for the development of an idiomatic and virtuoso violin technique. They stand midway between the homogeneous textures of the instrumental canzona of the late Renaissance and the trio sonata of the mature Baroque.
Works published, and preserved today include:
Il primo libro delle sinfonie e gagliarde a 3–5 voci (1607)
Il secondo libro delle sinfonie e gagliarde a 3–5 voci (1608)
Il terzo libro de varie sonate, sinfonie (1613)
Il quarto libro de varie sonate, sinfonie (1622)
Rossi also published a collection of Jewish liturgical music, השירים אשר לשלמה (Ha-shirim asher li-Shlomo, The Songs of Solomon) in 1623. This was written in the Baroque tradition and (almost) entirely unconnected to traditional Jewish cantorial music. This was an unprecedented development in synagogal music. The biblical Song of Solomon does not appear within The Songs of Solomon, hence the name is probably a pun on Rossi's first name (Rikko 1969). It is the earliest known published collection of liturgical music in Hebrew; there would not be another for two hundred years.
The publication begins with an introductory essay by the rabbi and scholar Leon of Modena. It praises Rossi's works and makes a case for the halachic suitability of composed music in Jewish liturgy, based on biblical precedents.
Rossi set many Biblical Hebrew texts to music in their original Hebrew language, which makes him unique among Baroque composers. His vocal music resembles that of Claudio Monteverdi and Luigi Rossi, but its lyrics are in Hebrew.
Recorded by Profeti della Quinta (2009), Boston Camerata