omenicoGiovanni Antonio Pandolfi ealli'' (1624 – ) was an Italian composer and violinist.

Life and works

Pandolfi was born in

Montepulciano Montepulciano () is a medieval and Renaissance hill town and ''comune'' in the Italian province of Siena in southern Tuscany. It sits high on a limestone ridge, east of Pienza, southeast of Siena, southeast of Florence, and north of Rome b ...

in 1624, where he was baptised on 27 November, the second son of Giovanni Battista Pandolfi and the fourth son of his father's second wife, Verginia Bartalini, the widow of Mario Mealli. His name at baptism was Domenico; it would appear that he adopted the names Giovanni Antonio on entering religious orders at some stage of his life. His father was the servant of a lawyer. Pandolfi's stepbrother Lorenzo, at the age of around 8, had become a

castrato A castrato (Italian, plural: ''castrati'') is a type of classical male singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto. The voice is produced by castration of the singer before puberty, or it occurs in one who, due to ...

singer at the court of

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. Another stepbrother, Giovan Battista Mealli, became a singer in Venice, where Domenico and the rest of the family joined him around 1630 following the death of old Pandolfi.Longo (2014). The annals of the court of

Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria Ferdinand Charles (17 May 1628 – 30 December 1662) was the Archduke of Further Austria, including Tyrol, from 1646 to 1662. As the son of Archduke Leopold V and Claudia de' Medici, he succeeded his father upon the latter's death in 1632, un ...

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; bar, Innschbruck, label=Bavarian language, Austro-Bavarian ) is the capital of Tyrol (state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the ...

record that Giovanni Antonio Pandolfi Mealli was employed at the court in 1660. He is believed to have trained as a musician in

Perugia Perugia (, , ; lat, Perusia) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber, and of the province of Perugia. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part o ...

. He moved to Innsbruck in 1652, and his sonatas Opp. 2 and 3 are dedicated to other court musicians there, many of whom were Italian. He left Innsbruck in 1662, and then took a position in

Messina Messina (, also , ) is a harbour city and the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 219,000 inhabitants in ...

.Manze (1999), p. 6. Of Pandolfi's works, his two collections of

sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

s for violin and harpsichord (Op. 3 and Op. 4) published 1660 and his trio sonatas (''Sonate Cioè Balletti'') published 1669 have survived; they are at the Civic Museum of Bologna. No trace is known of Pandolfi's Opp. 1 and 2. The violinist

Andrew Manze Andrew Manze (born 14 January 1965) is a British conductor and violinist living in Germany. Born in Beckenham, United Kingdom, Manze read Classics at Cambridge University. Manze studied violin and worked with Ton Koopman (his director in th ...

believes the 1669 sonatas may be the work of another composer of a similar name, although the music historian David McCormick argues for their common authorship. He points out that Pandolfi is named on the title page of the 1669 sonatas (although without the additional surname Mealli) as a musician of Messina, and that the 1669 sonatas are named after court musicians of that city; one of them to the

Giovanni Marquett, whom Pandolfi was to murder a few years later. Pandolfi killed Marquett in Messina on 21 December 1675 following a political argument in the

Duomo ''Duomo'' (, ) is an Italian term for a church with the features of, or having been built to serve as, a cathedral, whether or not it currently plays this role. Monza Cathedral, for example, has never been a diocesan seat and is by definition not ...

. Pandolfi is described in a contemporary chronicle as a "priest of Montepulciano", and Marquett as "an impertinent layman and eunuch". It reports that Pandolfi had seized Marquett's sword and killed him with it. After this Pandolfi fled first either to France or

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

, and then to Spain, where he was employed from 1678 in the

Royal Chapel A royal chapel is a chapel associated with a monarch, a royal court, or in a royal palace. A royal chapel may also be a Chapel (music), body of clergy or musicians serving at a royal court or employed by a monarch. Commonwealth countries Both ...

. He visited Rome in 1679. In 1682 he is reported as living in the household of the

Papal nuncio An apostolic nuncio ( la, nuntius apostolicus; also known as a papal nuncio or simply as a nuncio) is an ecclesiastical diplomat, serving as an envoy or a permanent diplomatic representative of the Holy See to a state or to an international org ...

in Madrid, Savo Mellini. There are no references to him after the year 1687, which may be the year of his death.

Legacy

Manze expresses the opinion that the influence of Pandolfi's works can be detected in the sonatas of

Arcangelo Corelli Arcangelo Corelli (, also , , ; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an Italian composer and violinist of the Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of sonata and concerto, in establishing the preeminence of ...

and others.Manze (1999), pp. 5–6.

List of surviving works

6 Sonatas for Violin & Continuo, Opus 3

*No.1: ''La Stella'' *No.2: ''La Cesta'' *No.3: ''La Melana'' *No.4: ''La Castella'' *No.5: ''La Clemente'' *No.6: ''La Sabbatina''

6 Sonatas for Violin & Continuo, Opus 4

*No.1: ''La Bernabea'' *No.2: ''La Viuviana'' *No.3: ''La Monella Romanesca'' *No.4: ''La Biancuccia'' *No.5: ''La Stella'' *No.6: ''La Vinciolina''

Sonate Cio Balletti

*No.1: Capriccetto ''Il Tozz'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.2: Capriccetto ''Il Candeloro'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.3: Capriccetto ''Il Drago'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.4: Capriccetto ''Il Falvetti'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.5: Capriccetto ''Il Cara'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.6: Capriccetto ''Il Muscari'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.7: La Domenga Sarabanda (2 violins & continuo) *No.8: Balletto ''Il Folcognoni'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.9: Balletto ''Il Ferrotti'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.10: Balletto ''Il Giusto'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.11: Balletto ''Lo Giudice'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.12: Balletto ''Il Colangiolo'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.13: Trombetta (2 violins & continuo) *No.14: Passacaglio ''Il Marcquetta'' (2 violins & continuo) *No.15: Balletto ''Il Monforti'' (violin & continuo) *No.16: Capriccetto ''Il Raimondo'' (violin & continuo) *No.17: Capriccetto ''Il Mavritio'' (violin & continuo) *No.18: Capriccetto ''Il Catalano'' (violin & continuo)

References

Sources

* Longo, Fabrizio (2014).
Pandolfi, Domenico
, in ''

Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani The ''Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani'' ( en, Biographical Dictionary of the Italians) is a biographical dictionary published by the Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana, started in 1925 and completed in 2020. It includes about 40,000 biograp ...

'', vol. 80. Rome:

Treccani The ''Enciclopedia Italiana di Scienze, Lettere e Arti'' (Italian for "Italian Encyclopedia of Science, Letters, and Arts"), best known as ''Treccani'' for its developer Giovanni Treccani or ''Enciclopedia Italiana'', is an Italian-language en ...

. Accessed 17 July 2020. (In Italian) * *

External links

Scores of sonatas op. 3 and 4 on the website Musikland Tyrol
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pandolfi, Giovanni Antonio 1624 births 1680s deaths People from Montepulciano Italian male classical composers Italian Baroque composers 17th-century Italian composers Italian murderers 17th-century Italian Roman Catholic priests 17th-century male musicians