Giovanni Battista Pinello di Ghirardi

Giovanni Battista Pinello di Ghirardi (c. 1544 – 15 June 1587 in Prague) was an Italian music composer and Kapellmeister of the Italian Renaissance.

Life and career Giovanni Battista Pinello was born in Genoa in c. 1544. He came from a noble Genoese family. The earliest known record of Pinello dates to 1569 when he was serving as a musician in Landshut in the chapel of William V, Duke of Bavaria. Financial woes in the Bavarian court, caused that chapel to close in 1570 and at this point Pinello returned to Italy. He settled in maestro di cappella at the Vicenza Cathedral. He remained in that post for several years during which time his first compositions were published in Venice. These included three "Neapolitan song" anthologies: Il secondo libro delle canzone napolitane (1571), Il terzo libro delle canzone napolitane (1572), and El quarto libro delle canzone napolitane (1575).

Compositions A four-part mass (1583) Ein deutsches Magnificat in den acht Kirchentönen (1584) – a German Magnificat in the eight church tones *Cantiones Sacrae and madrigals for eight, ten and fifteen voices (Dresden, 1584) Neue deutsche Lieder zu fünf Stimmen (Dresden, 1585) – New German songs to five voices held in the style of the Neapolitan villanella transferred from the Italian Napolitane a cinque voci (Dresden, 1585) – in five voices Motetii quinque vocum (1588) 18 five-part Motets (Prague 1588)