Scandello, Antonio (1517–1580)

Italian composer. He became a Protestant and was music director (Kapellmeister) at the Elector of Saxony's court chapel at Dresden. Both his church music and secular songs combine Italian and German styles for the first time.

He is first heard of as a cornettist in Bergamo in 1541 and was a member of the Saxon court chapel at Dresden in 1553. He often returned to Brescia for visits, as in 1567, when he and his family took refuge there during the plague at Dresden. Among the court musicians was his brother Angelo Scandello, and also employed at the court was the Italian painter Benedetto Tola, whose daughter Agnese became Scandello's second wife in 1568. In the same year he was appointed Kapellmeister in place of Matthieu Le Maistre, whose assistant he had been for two years. He became involved in quarrels with the German court musicians and the Flemish singers because the Italians received higher pay.

Works Church music Masses; motets; setting for voices of the Passion and Resurrection narrative according to St John (1561); hymn tunes for several voices; other church music.

Chamber and vocal madrigals; epithalamia; canzoni napoletane for four voices; sacred and secular German songs for several voices and instruments; lute music.