Girolamo Chiti

Girolamo Chiti (born January 19, 1679 in Siena , † September 4, 1759 in Rome ) was an Italian composer .

Life

After completing his basic theological and musical training with the Jesuits , Girolamo Chiti became organist at St. Mary's Church in Provenzana. In 1713 at the latest he settled in Rome and earned his living as a temporary musician and composer for commissioned works. In 1726, Chiti was called to the Lateran , where he was appointed Kapellmeister of the Patriarchal Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano . Through his contacts with the Corsini family, Chiti also took over the position of Kapellmeister a little later in the Capella Corsini .

Between 1703 and 1748, Chiti wrote a number of music-theoretical writings and, along with Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni and Giovanni Battista Martini, is considered the leading music scholar of his time. During his life he dealt with the viewing and copying of old scores. In 1750 he gave his entire collection to Cardinal Neri Maria Corsini. As “Fondo Chiti” it forms the basis of the “Corsini Library”.

As Kapellmeister of San Giovanni Chiti continued to submit new compositions for church music . He used both the strictly imitated strict sentence and the homophonic one.

He often added accompanying instruments to the singing, which not only serve to reinforce the voice, but are performed independently. For larger forms such as masses, a small instrumental ensemble takes over the accompaniment. A curiosity is the Te Deum with gunfire ”.

literature

• Mauricio Dottori: The church music of David Perez and Niccolò Jommelli . DeArtes / Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR), Curitiba 2008, ISBN 978-85-98826-19-6 .
• Siegfried Gmeinwieser: Girolamo Chiti, 1679–1759. An investigation into church music in S. Giovanni in Laterano (= Cologne contributions to music research, vol. 47). Bosse, Regensburg 1968.
• Arnaldo Morelli: "Tutte le professioni ed arti nobili hanno la loro istoria". Girolamo Chiti e la storia come fondamento della pratica musicale . In: Emilio Sala (ed.): Le note del ricordo. Il codice musicale M13 della Biblioteca dell'Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana di Roma . Nova Charter, Venice 2015, ISBN 978-88-95047-27-0 , pp. 73–91.
• Giancarlo Rostirolla, Luciano Luciani, Maria Adelaide Morabito Iannucci, Cecilia Paris (eds.), Settecento musicale erudito: Epistolario Giovanni Battista Martini e Girolamo Chiti (1745–1759): 472 lettere del Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica di Bologna . IBIMUS, Roma 2010.