ITALIAN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY SONGS AND
DUETS
Sung by BEATRICE BEAUFORT and JANET CHRISTOPHER
ALESSANDRO GRANDI was Deputy Conductor of Music at St. Mark's Cathe'dral in Venice in 1619, and wrote much sacred music.
PIETRO FRANCESCO CAVALLI (1599) is a very important musician. He took opera from the hands of Monteverdi and maintained it with much dramatic power and a force of rhythm unknown before.
GIOVANNI LEGRENZI was Maestro di Capella at St. Mark's, Venice, in 1685. ANTONIO LOTTI was the first Vice Maestro di Cuppella at St. Mark's (1692) and subsequently principal Maestro di Cappella ; he was a famous male contralto. He ranks high among composers, and although the last representative of the old severe school, he used modern harmonies with freedom and grace, expression and variety. He wrote operas, madrigals, and sacred music.
ANTONIO CALDARA at the end of the century had many qualities of a high order in spite of his tendency to florid style.
ALESSANDRO SCARLATTI produced most of his operas in Venice, including his most famous one, Tigrane.
FALCONIERI was a Neapolitan noble of the beginning of the seventeenth century.
MANCIA, a composer of whom very little is known ; the excerpt here given is a beautiful example of his work.