Luigi Guatri

The Oratorio per la Settimana Santa, which is among the very first compositions to be labelled “oratorio” in the sources, was composed in Rome in the 1640s. It was probably performed in the Oratorio di San Girolamo della Carità, where Filippo Neri held his esercizi spirituali. It appears in a manuscript source from the Barberini collection of the Vatican Library which doesn’t specify its composer— although this is usually identified as Luigi Rossi — but names Giulio Cesare Raggioli as the author of the text. Both Raggioli and Rossi worked for members of the Barberini family, who were close relations of pope Urban VIII (Maffeo Barberini), and themselves powerful patrons of music and the arts. an opera.

Superb individual players yet perfectly integrated tonally. They are also thoroughly at home in Cherubini's sound-world. In short these modern-instrument performances could hardly be bettered.

Superb individual players yet perfectly integrated tonally. They are also thoroughly at home in Cherubini's sound-world. In short these modern-instrument performances could hardly be bettered.

Prince Nicholas Esterházy, the employer of Joseph Haydn, was a passionate music lover and played several instruments, among them the cello, the viola da gamba and the baryton, which was his favourite instrument.
Characteristic of the baryton are the parallel 6 to 7 gut strings, which are bowed, and up to 20, though usually 9 or 10 metal resonance strings running underneath the fingerboard. The neck, open to the rear, also allowed the strings to be plucked. The tuning of the fretted strings was similar to those of the viola da gamba. The baryton was almost exclusively played in Austria and South Germany between the middle of the 17th and the end of the 18th century.

Luigi Rossi (ca. 1597 – 20 February 1653) was an Italian Baroque composer. Rossi was born in Torremaggiore, a small town near Foggia, in the ancient kingdom of Naples and at an early age he went to Naples. There he studied music with the Franco-Flemish composer Jean de Macque who was organist of the Santa Casa dell’Annunziata and maestro di cappella to the Spanish viceroy. Rossi later entered the service of the Caetani, dukes of Traetta. Luigi Rossi composed just two operas: Il palazzo incantato, which was given at Rome in 1642; and Orfeo, written after he was invited by Cardinal Mazarin in 1646 to go to Paris for that purpose, and given its premiere there in 1647. Rossi returned to France in 1648 hoping to write another opera, but no production was possible because the court had sought refuge outside Paris. Rossi returned to Rome by 1650 and never attempted anything more for the stage.