Musicatlas
Music
He published many German songs (a genre also practiced by contemporary compariots such as Alexander Utendaal, qv and Arnold von Bruck, qv), at the time often crude compared to the refined Italianate poetry; those in 4 to 6 parts are on the whole conservative (one of his prefaces takes exception to the idea of madrigalian word painting) but those in 3 parts owe something to the villanella style. He was particularly prolific in a popular german genre, the Drinklied (drinking song for wine or beer) such as “Der Wein, der schmeckt mir also wol” (“The wine relishes me thus”) a 4, which Lassus — who called the declamatory German song style with firm rhythmic accents “tapfrig”, i.e. square and march-like — also put to music (in 5 parts). He also published motets.
Life
Ivo de Vento is a Flemish Polyphony composer of the 5th generation (championed by Orlandus Lassus), probably of Low Countries descent, presumably recruited in Antwerp in 1556 as boy chorister accompanying Lassus to Munich. In 1560 he studied music with Claudio Merulo in Venice; after his return as organist in Munich in 1564, he became ducal Kapellmeister at Landshut to Wilhelm of Bavaria in 1568, and was finally appointed court organist (however writing mainly vocal music) at Munich in 1569, under Lassus, till his own death there in 1575.