Biography
Francesco Landini emerged as a key figure among Italian composers of the fourteenth century. His output encompassed ballates, virelai, madrigals and caccia. Roughly two-thirds of these pieces were two-voice ballates, while one-third employed three voices. Landini advanced through three successive stylistic phases. His earliest works observed the longstanding trecento conventions of fourteenth-century Italian music, allowing melodies to unfold in a free, spontaneous manner reminiscent of improvisation within relatively uncomplicated frameworks. A middle phase displayed pronounced French influence, most evident in the three-voice ballates and in the varied placement of text among the parts. In the majority of these three-part ballates the superius alone carried the words, though the tenor sometimes received text as well, and in a few instances the text was shared across all voices. His final compositions fused Italian and French techniques, introducing consistent tonality in numerous later ballates by returning to the same pitch at the opening and close of each ripresa. Landini also shaped the piede to conclude on the identical note as the ripresa and refrained from crossing the tenor and countertenor lines, a practice common among French composers. Endowed with a notable melodic gift and a preference for cadential under-thirds—the so-called Landini cadence—Francesco Landini advanced the historical development of music.