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He probably studied with Costanzo Porta, becoming choirmaster at the cathedral in Mantua in 1594. In 1597 he went to Rome, and in 1602 he became choirmaster at the cathedral of San Luca in Mantua. He held a succession of posts at various cathedrals in Italy, including Concordia (near Venice) and Fano. For three years, 1614- 1617, he held a position in his religious order which covered the entire province of Bologna (including FerraraFerrara a town, an archiepiscopal see and a province in Emilia-Romagna, Italy. Situated 30 m. of Bologna, 30 ft. above sea-level on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po river, which is 3 1/2 miles north. The town has broad stree, Mantua and PiacenzaPiacenza is a city in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, of approximately 104,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the province of Piacenza. It was founded in 218 BC as a Roman military colony, and was formerly called Placentia in both Latin an). By 1623Events August 6 Pope Urban VIII is elected to the Papacy. Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Osman II (1618- 1622) to Murat IV ( 1623- 1640). The Safavids recapture Baghdad. England first colonizes Saint Kitts and Nevis. Wilhelm Schickard invent he had moved to BussetoBusseto is a commune in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna. It was home of Giuseppe Verdi when he moved in 1824., where he worked at the convent of Santa Andrea.
Viadana is important in the development of the early BaroqueBaroque music is Western classical music from the Baroque era, after the Renaissance music era and before the Classical music era proper. This roughly covers the time period from Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) through Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). technique of basso continuo, and its notational method, known as figured bassFigured bass or thoroughbass is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervallic content (the intervals which make up a sonority), later chords, in relation to a bass note. Which octave each note is played in, and what, if any, embellishmen. While he did not invent the method, he was the first to use it in a widely-distributed collection of sacred music (Cento concerti con il basso continuo), which he published in Venice in 1602. Agostino AgazzariAgostino Agazzari ( December 2, 1578 April 10, 1640) was an Italian composer and music theorist. He was born in Siena to an aristocratic family. After working in Rome, as a teacher at the Germanic College, he returned to Siena in 1607, becoming first orga in 1607 published a treatise describing how to interpret the new figured bass, though it is clear that many performers had by this time already learned the new method, at least in the most progressive musical centers in Italy.
Viadana composed mostly sacred music: masses, Psalms, magnificats, motets, and lamentations, though there are two books of secular canzonette and a book of eight-voice Sinfonia musicali. His earlier music is clearly in a Renaissance style, strictly a cappella with balanced polyphony between the voices, but after 1602 he wrote increasingly in an early Baroque style, with frequent concertato passages, and always with a basso continuo. He also used the monodic style, especially in his later works, and some of his Psalm settings (for example the Salmi op. 27, for four spatially separated choruses) are progressive works in the Venetian polychoral style. In addition, some of his later works anticipate the later instrumental concerto: they indicate specific instrumentation--still not a widely used practice--and they involve back-and-forth dialog between groups of voices and instruments.
He also wrote some secular music, but the quantity is limited as may be expected from a member of a strict religious order. These include two volumes of canzonetta s (one for three, and one for four voices) and a volume of instrumental sinfonias, which are actually more like typical canzonas (terminology was loose in the decades right around 1600: what one composer called a sinfonia, another might call a fantasia, canzona, or a ricercar). In the sinfonias each individual composition bears the name of a different town in Italy: they can almost be conceived as an early kind of program music.
Viadana's music was influential not only in Italy, but also in Germany, on composers such as Michael Praetorius, Johann Schein and Heinrich Schütz. It was largely through Viadana that the concertato style arrived in Germany, the country that was to develop it most eagerly in the early 17th century.