Rore, Cipriano de (c. 1516–1565)

Flemish composer. He spent much of his life in Italy, where he was a prolific composer of madrigals and sacred music. He wrote 125 madrigals, most of which are contained in the ten books he published 1542–46. His works made a strong impression on Monteverdi.

He studied under Adrian Willaert at Venice, where he was a singer at St Mark's, and began to publish madrigals in 1542. He left Venice about 1550 to enter the service of Duke Ercole II d'Este at Ferrara. In 1558, he visited his parents at Antwerp and the court of Margaret of Parma, governor of the Netherlands, at Brussels, into the service of whose husband, Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma, he passed in 1561. In 1563 he succeeded Willaert as maestro di cappella of St Mark's, Venice, but returned to Parma the following year.

Rore's parody Masses and motets follow the style of the previous generation, but it is for his madrigals that he is chiefly remembered. He set many of Petrarch's texts in his earlier madrigals; in the later ones he became more aware of sensitive treatment of the text.

Works Church and secular music 5 Masses, 65 motets, one Passion and other church music; 125 madrigals; instrumental fantasies and ricercari, and other pieces.