Ivo de Vento

Ivo de Vento (c. 1544, Antwerp - 3 September 1575, Munich) was a Franco-Flemish composer, organist and Kapellmeister of the High Renaissance.

From numerous receipts sent to his father in Antwerp it is known that Ivo de Vento was present at the ducal court of Albert V in Munich around September 1556 or a little later, one of a number of boy singers recruited from the Spanish Netherlands, possibly chosen by Orlando di Lasso. He was employed under Hofkapellmeister Ludwig Daser until September 1559, when his voice broke and he was given a stipend to study in Venice. Presumably his teachers would have included Claudio Merulo, the organist at San Marco, and Annibale Padovano. Italian influence is evident in a 6-part Battaglia printed in a Venetian anthology of 1564. In 1563 he returned to Munich as organist, a post shared with two Italian colleagues in the newly expanded Hofkapelle now led by Orlando di Lasso. Vento was fostered by the famous composer, as shown by inclusion of his work in a collection of 6-part masses (1564/65) as well as the 1569 Madrigals and its 1575 sequel.

In summer of 1568 the crown price Wilhelm V, having married Renata of Lorraine, moved part of the court to Landshut and made Vento director of the affiliated kapelle. For unknown reasons this position was taken over a year later by Antonius Gosswin, Vento remaining as organist and director of the boys, among whom was Leonhard Lechner. Vento was back at the Munich court as organist at the start of 1570, months before the dissolution of the Landshut Kapelle. Though Lasso's letters give no evidence, Vento could have studied with him, since the masses found in mss of the 1560s and 70's show his influence, and a number of the 5-part Latinae cantiones (1570) are on texts also set by Lasso. Nevertheless, his style is not especially dependent on Lasso's. From 1569 on Vento was unusually productive, the Munich printer Adam Berg issuing 11 collections, including four volumes of motets and a Viersprachendruck, a title which alludes to Lasso's own four-language publication.

Ivo de Vento died in Munich in September 1575, barely 31 years old and leaving a widow and at least one son, Ferdinand de Venndo. Ferdinand succeeded him at the Munich court, became trumpeter to Archduke Ferdinand in Graz in 1599 and remained in the Emperor's service, dying in 1623.

Gesamtausgabe: Ivo de Vento. Sämtliche Werke, 5 Bände, Wiesbaden 1998 und folgende; Band 1 und 2: Motetten, herausgegeben von August de Groote 1998; Band 3 und 4: Deutsche Lieder, herausgegeben von Nicole Schwindt 2002 und 2003; Band 5: Viersprachendruck und sonstige Einzelwerke, herausgegeben von August de Groote 2004.