Adrian Willaert

Franco-Flemish composer Adrian Willeart (ca. 1490-1562) founded the Venetian school at San Marco and was a chief progenitor of Venetian polychoral style; he also helped to introduce the forms of canzona and ricercare, the basic building blocks for many early, purely instrumental pieces. A student of Jean Mouton in Paris in the early 1600s, Willeart worked in the service of the Este family from about 1514, assuming the position at San Marco in 1527. Willeart's students from San Marco dominated the middle and late Italian renaissance and were largely responsible for developing the "note nere" madrigal; Orlande Lassus was also a follower.