Giacomo Carissimi Giacomo Carissimi

Giacomo Carissimi (baptized 18 April 1605 – 12 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. Carissimi established the characteristic features of the Latin oratorio and was a prolific composer of motets and cantatas. He was highly influential in musical developments in north European countries through his pupils and the wide dissemination of his music.

Biography

Carissimi's exact birthdate is not known, but it was probably in 1604 or 1605 in Marino near Rome, Italy. Of his early life almost nothing is known. Giacomo’s parents, Amico (1548–1633, a cooper by trade) and Livia (1565–1622), were married on 14 May 1595 and had four daughters and two sons; Giacomo was the youngest.

Nothing is known of his early musical training. His first known appointments were at Tivoli Cathedral, under the maestri di cappella Aurelio Briganti Colonna, Alessandro Capece and Francesco Manelli; from October 1623 he sang in the choir, and from October 1624 to October 1627 he was the organist. In 1628 Carissimi moved north to Assisi, as maestro di cappella (chapel master) at the Cathedral of San Rufino. In 1628 he obtained the same position at the church of Sant'Apollinare belonging to the Collegium Germanicum in Rome, which he held until his death. This was despite him receiving several offers to work in very prominent establishments, including an offer to take over from Claudio Monteverdi at San Marco di Venezia in Venice. In 1637 he was ordained a priest. He seems to have never left Italy at all during his entire lifetime. He died in 1674 in Rome.

Carissimi's successor as maestro di cappella at the Collegium Germanicum in 1686 described him as tall, thin, very frugal in his domestic affairs, with very noble manners towards his friends and acquaintances, and prone to melancholy.

Selected works

Oratorios

• Jephte, oratorio for 6 voices & continuo 1648
• Jonas, oratorio for soloists, SATB double chorus, 2 violins & continuo
• Judicium Extremum, oratorio for soloists, chorus & continuo
• Vanitas Vanitatum, oratorio for 5 voices, 2 violins & continuo

Cantatas

• Piangete, aure, piangete, cantata for soprano & continuo
• Così volete, così sarà, cantata for soprano & continuo 1640
• Vittoria, mio core (Amante sciolto d'amore), cantata for soprano & continuo 1646
• Ferma Lascia Ch'Io Parli (Lamento della Regina Maria Stuarda), cantata for soprano & continuo 1650
• Sciolto havean dall'alte sponde (I naviganti), cantata for 2 sopranos, baritone & continuo 1653
• Apritevi inferni (Peccator penitente), cantata for soprano & continuo 1663

Motets

• Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae, motet for mezzo-soprano, soprano & continuo
• Exulta, gaude, filia Sion, motet for 2 sopranos & continuo 1675
• Exurge, cor meum, in cithara, motet for soprano, 2 violins, viole & continuo 1670
• Ardens est cor nostrum [meum], motet for soprano, alto, tenor, bass & continuo 1664
• Desiderata nobis, motet for alto, tenor, bass & continuo 1667

Masses

• Missa "Sciolto havean dall'alte sponde," mass for 5 voices & continuo

In popular culture

Samuel Pepys was delighted with Carissimi's music. His Diary records that he met "Mr. Hill, and Andrews, and one slovenly and ugly fellow, Seignor Pedro, who sings Italian songs to the theorbo most neatly, and they spent the whole evening in singing the best piece of musique counted of all hands in the world, made by Seignor Charissimi, the famous master in Rome. Fine it was, indeed, and too fine for me to judge of."

Carissimi is the viewpoint character for the "Euterpe" series of short stories by Enrico M. Toro within the 1632 series of books edited by Eric Flint.