JAMES HARRY DUMALAGA

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was born in

1525 and died in 1594. His surname comes from the place
of his birth--a small town twenty miles from Rome. A
choirboy at S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, in 1537, he was
appointed organist and maestro di cappellaat Palestrina
cathedral in 1544 under the Bishop who later became Pope
Julius III. After seven years his former summoned him to
Rome as chapelmaster of the Cappella Giulia at St Peter's,
in which post he served from 1551 to 1554 and again from 1571 until his
death His choir here consisted of Italians, being thus sharply distinguished
from the choir of the Sistine Chapel, which since Dufay's days and before
had been almost entirely recruited from Flanders. Soon after Palestrina's
appointment he brought out a book of masses, which are the first ever
dedicated to a Pope by an Italian composer. The fact may be remembered
as a symbol of the rising influence of the native school.

A few years later Palestrina was appointed a member of the Sistine Choir,
but was subsequently dismissed by Paul IV because of his unacceptable
married status, and was quickly retired with a pension. After other
appointments, as choirmaster at St John Lateran in 1555-60, at S. Maria
Maggiore in 1561-6, and at the Roman Seminary in 1566-71. As earlier
mentioned, Palestrina returned to the Julian Chapel in 1571 as
chapelmaster, remaining there until he died in 1594. In the 1560s he had
also directed concerts at the Tivoli villa of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, and had
a Mass commissioned by the Duke of Mantua, who tried to persuade him
to leave Rome for the Mantuan court.
A lute (/ljuːt/)[1] is any plucked string instrument with a neck (either fretted
or unfretted) and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with
a sound hole or opening in the body. More specifically, the term "lute" can
refer to an instrument from the family of European lutes.

The violin, also known informally as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument

in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the
smallest and highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use.
Smaller violin-type instruments are known, including the violino piccolo and
the kit violin, but these are virtually unused

The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual

strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with
the fingers. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and
Europe, dating back at least as early as 3500

The hurdy-gurdy is a stringed instrument that produces sound by a hand

crank-turned, rosined wheel rubbing against the strings. The wheel
functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument
sound similar to those of a violin. Melodies are played on a keyboard that
presses tangents—small wedges, typically made of wood—against one or
more of the strings to change their pitch. Like most other acoustic stringed
instruments, it has a sound board and hollow cavity to make the vibration of
the strings audible.

SOURES: wikipedia.org