Giacomo Fogliano

Giacomo Fogliano (Jacopo Fogliani), composer and organist born and died in Modena, lived across the late fifteenth and mid-sixteenth centuries. Brother of Lodovico Fogliano, according to a letter of his addressed to Pietro Aretino in 1542, his reputation rests above all on his service to the cathedral of his native city and on a output that embraces sacred music, laude, frottole, madrigals and keyboard pieces.

According to the Dialogo di Parente, published in Modena in 1483, the young Giacomo excelled at the organ and pedals, was a master of the harpsichord and stood out on other instruments. Between 1479 and 1497 he was organist of Modena Cathedral. Of his whereabouts between 1497 and 1504 there is no certainty: Fusi mentions a certain Giacomo di Salvatore, piper of the Magnifici Signori, documented in Siena in 1498, and suggests that it may have been him, a hypothesis that is probably correct. From 1504 until his death he again held the post of organist in Modena, with a brief journey to Parma in 1543 to test a new organ. His duties included singing, teaching the choir boys, composing and instructing on the organ. His best-known pupil was Giulio Segni, whom he trained between 1512 and 1514 at the commission of Cardinal Ippolito I d'Este. A commemorative plaque placed by his daughter survives in the cathedral.

His few sacred works frequently employ imitative duets and homophonic episodes, with a practical rather than expressive declamation. His laude are even more homophonic and of simple texture, intended for singers who were not virtuosos. His frottole, mostly from around 1500, alternate between chordal and periodic styles, dance character, and upper and lower voices moving in parallel tenths. His five-voice madrigals, published in 1547, are not much more advanced than those of the madrigalists of the early 1530s.

His four ricercares for keyboard, probably from the late 1520s or 1530s, show clearer and more concise planning than those of Marco Antonio Cavazzoni, with a disciplined use of instrumental resources. His great contribution was to introduce numerous brief imitative entries, though he prevented imitation from dominating the work through scalar passages, ostinatos and chords. His legacy lies in that synthesis between vocal polyphony and keyboard writing.