FESTA, Costanzo. — Musician, born in the diocese of Turin (as is evident from a papal brief of Leo X dated 1 November 1517), c. 1465, died in Rome on 10 April 1545; in 1517 he was admitted to the College of Papal Singers, composed two settings of the Miserere, for 4 and 5 voices (Cod. Sist. 205-206); in 1519 one of his mottoes for 6 voices was published in vol. IV of the Motetti della corona (Fossombrone 1519). From that time he composed much sacred and secular music which brought him wide renown.
His funeral oration called him “musicus excellentissimus et cantor egregius”; various encomia, more or less extensive, are accorded him by P. Aron (Lucidaria di Musica, Venice 1545), G. M. Nanino (Centocinquantesette contrapunti sopra del canto fermo intitolato la base di C. F., Blantaya 1862), G. M. Lanfranco (Scintille di musica, Brescia 1533). Recent studies have confirmed these judgments and established that in Festa the Roman school had not only its founder but the first great Italian contrapuntist, who, in his motets and madrigals, employed a cappella style with truly artistic results, distinguishing himself in particular by the expressive importance he gave to the top voice, whose expansive, ariose singing would become characteristic of Italian sensibility.
Most of his sacred music survives in manuscripts in the Vatican Library, the archives of the Sistine Chapel (30 years at 3 and 6 voices; 12 Maggifests, a Te Deum, one Mass in 4 voices, responsories, antiphons, some ten motets, a Credo in 5 voices, etc.), and the Liceo musicale in Bologna (4 motets in 4 voices and Pucherina mulier); printed collections containing sacred music by C. F. range from 1519 (Motetti de la Corona) to 1596 (a famous Te Deum sung in the Vatican until the last century, in short verses over plainsong melodies, in responsories, antiphons and hymns), and are mostly Venetian, Roman and French editions; they contain motets, a Maggifest on all eight tones in 4 voices, lamentations, etc. Quam pulchro es, in 3 voices (1543), was published by Burney (v. BIBLICA); Regens regnum in 4 voices (1513) by Torchi in L’Arte musicale in Italia (I, Milan 1897, p. 49); a Te Deum in 4 voices by P. Alfieri in Raccolta di musica sacra (III, Rome 1846, p. 406). Recently (1935), some twenty sacred compositions, under the title Sacrae cantiones 3, 4, 5, 6 volubiles, were issued by the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, with an extensive preface by Dagnino. He also wrote about 125 madrigals from 1533 onward; these were printed in Venetian collections from 1533 to 1549, containing music by Verdelot, Arcadelt, Gero and others.