Francesco Soriano

Francesco Soriano, an Italian composer, studied under Zoilo, Roy and Montanari, and Palestrina himself may have counted him among his pupils, a connection asserted in surviving letters. Soriano served at the Mantuan court before taking charge of the chapel choirs at S Maria Maggiore, St. John Lateran and St. Peter’s. His output encompasses motets, masses, madrigals, a passion setting and psalms. Among his revisions stands a new eight-voice arrangement of Palestrina’s six-part Missa Papae Marcelli, originally scored for four voices. Soriano’s assured handling of polyphony and the diatonic modes is evident in his animated harmonic movement, while rhythmic figures shaped by the words and a preference for melismas over diminution recall practices associated with Palestrina.