1583 - 1643


Italian composer who wrote music for the harpsicord and was one of the first great masters of organ compositions.

Frescobaldi studied in Ferrara, where the musical tastes of the ruling duke, Alfonso II d'Este, attracted musicians of great distinction.

Later Frescobaldi moved to Rome under the patronage of Guido Bentivoglio who, in 1607, took him to Brussels, an important centre of keyboard music in the northern European tradition.

In 1608 he was appointed organist at St. Peter's in Rome, where he remained until his death, with a brief absence for promised employment in Mantua in 1615 and a subsequent period of six years serving the Medici in Florence.




















































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Peri, Jacopo
1561 - 1633
Florentine singer and composer who aspired to restore the true principles of Greek tragic declamation.

Experimenting in an instrumentally accompanied declamatory style, he wrote "Dafne" (c. 1594), which has been historically accepted as the first genuine opera.