Claudio Monteverdi.
Claudio Monteverdi (15 May 1567 – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, string player and maestro di cappella. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a transitional figure between the Renaissance and the Baroque periods of music history. He was a court musician in Mantua (c. 1590 – 1613), and then maestro di cappella at St Mark's Basilica in the Republic of Venice. His surviving music includes nine books of madrigals, in the tradition of earlier Renaissance polyphony – but also experimenting with the basso continuo technique, distinctive of the Baroque – as well as large-scale sacred works, including the Vespro della Beata Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin), and three complete operas. His music enjoyed a rediscovery from the 1880s onwards, and he is now seen as a significant influence in European musical history. Seven of his operas have been lost, but his L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest opera that is still widely performed.
