ITALIAN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SONGS AND DUETS
Sung by BEATRICE BEAUFORT and JANET CHRISTOPHER
ROME IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
GIACOMO CARISSIMI (15S2) did more than any
Italian of his epoch towards the perfection of Recitative. He was the parent by adoption, if not the inventor, of the Sacred Cantata, which ' at his hands,' says Grove, ' received that elevation and accession of beauty which enabled it to supplant the madrigal.' Of his sacred cantata ' Jephthah,' Hawkins says, for sweetness of melody, artful modulation, and'original harmony, it is justly esteemed one of the finest efforts of musical skill and genius that the world knows of.' QUAGLIATI was organist in 1608 at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome.
FRESCOBALM (1583) was tho most distinguished organist of the century.
ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI , back in Rome in his old age, produced his last operas, including Griselda (his 114th), in Rome.