Giovanni Battista Grillo

A Venetian organist who served the early part of his musical career in Austria. Grillo dedicated a work to Duke Ferdinand of Austria and was called back to Italy from a court of the Germans. He became the organist for the confraternity Scuola Grande di Rocco, then St Madonna dell'Orto and the first organist of St Mark's. Grillo was one of the composers commissioned to write a requiem for Cosimo II of Tuscany. The compositions which he did write have a definitive influence from Gabrieli who was more than likely Grillo's instructor. All of Grillo's music seems to parrott that of Gabrieli. In five works for the church, however, Grillo employed unique, but not innovative, techniques. He employed the use of a concertata in which an organ accompaniment was required. The music contained a fully-figured bass, a basso continuo, and little indication to distinguish between the tutti parts and the soli parts. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi