Giacomo Carissimi

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(b Marini, bap. 18 April 1605; d Rome, 12 Jan 1674). Italian composer. Between 1623 and 1627 he was a singer and organist at Tivoli Cathedral. In 1628-9 he worked at Assisi and in 1629 he was made maestro di cappella at the Jesuit Collegio Germanico, Rome, where he remained until his death, training the students in music, educating the choirboys and organizing the music at the collegiate church of S Apollinare. In 1637 he became a priest.

The loss of Carissimi's autographs when the Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773 has left problems as to the authenticity and chronology of his works. A few authentic masses remain, showing him working in an old tradition and including probably the last work to be based on the medieval song L′homme armé. Most of the motets are for few voices with continuo, occasionally with obbligato instruments; they are unusually varied in structure but otherwise not distinguished above those of his contemporaries.

Carissimi's chief importance is as a composer of oratorios. Their narrative style is basically simple, with links to the stile recitativo of Monteverdi and Viadana's monodic motet style. Carissimi heightens its effect with rhetorical gestures, often involving the transposed repetition of a phrase to the same or different words. The oratorios also include stretches of aria-like writing, and a position of special importance is given to the chorus. The final chorus of Jephte was particularly esteemed (and was used by Handel in Samson). In his lifetime Carissimi also enjoyed a reputation as a composer of secular cantatas, which are distinguished by the variety of their musical structures and the diversity of their texts, which include some humorous ones.

Carissimi's pupils included not only several Italians (Bassani, Cesti, A. Scarlatti and Steffani may have been among them) but also the Germans J.K. Kerll and Christoph Bernhard and the Frenchman Charpentier. Carissimi's works, especially the motets, were held in high esteem in England throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.

works:
Sacred music

• 4 masses
• c100 motets
• 14 oratorios, incl. Baltazar, Jephte, Jonas, Judicium Salomonis

Secular music

• c150 cantatas, incl. A pie d′un verde alloro, Ferma, lascia ch′io parli, Suonerà l′ultima tromba

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Giacomo Carissimi (1605-1674) was an Italian composer of sacred and secular vocal music. His oratorios and chamber cantatas are of high importance musically and historically.

Giacomo Carissimi was born in Marino near Rome and baptized on April 18, 1605. In 1622 or 1623 he became a singer at the Cathedral of Tivoli, and from 1624 to 1627 he worked as organist there. He was chapelmaster at the church of S. Rufino in Assisi from 1628 to 1629. He was then appointed chapelmaster at the church of S. Apollinare in Rome and was simultaneously put in charge of musical instruction at the German College, an adjoining institution. Carissimi remained in this double position until his death on Jan. 12, 1674. He declined numerous invitations to other posts, and it seems that he never left Rome after 1630. His music was performed throughout Italy and abroad during his lifetime and well into the 18th century.

The extant works of Carissimi include 17 oratorios, about 150 chamber cantatas (that is, to Italian words), over 200 motets (to Latin words), at least 12 Masses, various liturgical works, some humorous Latin pieces, and a treatise on music. One or two pieces for instruments may be by Carissimi. But his music is virtually all for voices with instrumental accompaniment.

Of Carissimi's oratorios 15 are in Latin and 2 are in Italian. The majority are set to texts dealing with subjects from the Old Testament, and many include a part for a narrator, called the testo. His best-known oratorio is Jephthe, composed by 1649 at the latest, which is a masterpiece of expressive writing in both its solo and choral portions.

Most of Carissimi's chamber cantatas, in Italian, are for solo soprano voice and basso continuo; the remainder are for two or three voices and basso continuo. They are built of sections in recitative, arioso and aria style, which proceed in a manner at once varied and unified. The great majority are set to poems on amorous subjects, but some of the poems are religious in content and others are humorous. Carissimi's cantatas excel for their superb word setting and high musical quality.

In his Latin motets Carissimi used essentially the same forms and styles as in his Italian cantatas. His Masses reveal his firm mastery of contrapuntal writing in the then traditional church style.

Both directly, through his teaching at the German College, and indirectly, through the numerous copies made of his music, Carissimi was a leading influence on contemporary and later composers in Italy, France, Germany, and England.

Further Reading

Carissimi's music is discussed in Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era: From Monteverdi to Bach (1947), and Claude V. Palisca, Baroque Music (1968). An important general background study is Donald Jay Grout, A History of Western Music (1960).

Additional Sources

Dixon, Graham., Carissimi, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.

• Period: Baroque (1600-1749)
• Country: Italy
• Born: April 18, 1605 in Marini, Italy
• Died: January 12, 1674 in Rome, Italy
• Genres: Choral Music, Vocal Music

Biography

Perhaps worthy of being designated the father of the oratorio, Giacomo Carissimi was among the most important Italian composers of the seventeenth century. He is best remembered for his oratorios and cantatas. Carissimi was born somewhere near Rome and baptized on April 18, 1605; an exact date of birth is not known. He was the son of an artisan, but he must have received a good deal of early musical training, for at the age of 18 he was recorded as a member of the Tivoli Cathedral choir. In 1625, he became the organist at the cathedral, and soon after that began composing.

Carissimi received his first and only important appointment in 1629: he became maestro di cappella of the Collegio Germanico in Rome. The Collegio Germanico was, at that time, a major center for Jesuit learning; Carissimi's position there commanded considerable influence and respect, and the composer would remain there until his death. As maestro di cappella, Carissimi was responsible for the musical training of students, the directorship of the choir, and the preparation of music for services at the church of St. Apollinare. In 1637, he was ordained as a priest. Carissimi became well-known and well-respected in Italy and across Europe, and was invited to accept employment at a number of important churches and courts. He turned down the opportunity to succeed Monteverdi at the famous St. Mark's in Venice, however, and likewise declined to serve in the court of the governor of the Netherlands.

While it is difficult to accurately catalog and date Carissimi's music, it is certain that he was one of the originators of the oratorio genre. His oratorios are notable for their clear text settings, the importance given to the chorus, and the use of expressive gestures to intensify and illustrate meanings in the text. The influence of early opera, and of Monteverdi in particular, is evident in the oratorios, and Carissimi's free alternation of aria- and recitative-style passages is considered an important contribution to the development and refinement of operatic recitative. All the operatic means, however, are turned to religious ends; Carissimi's oratorios are sacred pieces, not the middle-class entertainments that Handel would create a century later. Carissimi also met with fame as a composer of cantatas, and, as with the oratorio, he advanced that genre substantially.

Carissimi was an influential figure, and several composers of the next generation bear the marks of his innovations and style. These included Alessandro Scarlatti in Italy, Christoph Bernhard in Germany, and Marc-Antoine Charpentier in France. ~ Alexander Carpenter, All Music Guide

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