Ippolito Baccusi, also known as Hippolyti Baccusii, was an Italian composer, active during the late Renaissance. He lived from approx. 1550 to 1609, and worked in Venice, Mantua, and Verona. Relatively little is known about Baccusi’s life other than where he worked. He was, for example, an assistant director of the choir at San Marco in Venice, before moving to Ravenna. He was a maestro di cappella in Verona, before moving to the monastery of Santo Stefano in Venice. Baccusi was the maestro di cappella at Mantua Cathedral, before moving to Verona in 1592.
Relatively little of Baccusi’s music is known, and is generally viewed as being in one branch of the ‘Venetian’ style, influenced by Adrian Willaert, Giaches de Wert, Cipriano de Rore and, to a lesser extent, Andrea Gabrieli. However, he was a prolific composer, and wrote six books of masses, six books of motets and psalm settings, and seven books of madrigals, including a complete setting of Petrarch’s eleven stanza Vergine. The introductions to the 1596 and 1597 publications of masses and motets by Baccusi mentions instrumental doubling of vocal parts, something directly associated with the another strand of the Venetian School.
This suggests that it is time to explore the music of this composer further, and assess the contribution he made to music from this period, as well as the opportunities his music offers to present day performers and listeners. His music features on Love Divine, and on recent concert programmes curated by luminatus vocal ensemble.