Giovanni Battista Abatessa (? – after 1651) was an Italian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

and

Baroque guitar The Baroque guitar (c. 1600–1750) is a string instrument with five courses of gut strings and moveable gut frets. The first (highest pitched) course sometimes used only a single string. History The Baroque guitar replaced the Renaissance lut ...

ist, likely born in

Bitonto Bitonto (; nap, label= Bitontino, Vetònde) is a city and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Bari (Apulia region), Italy. It lies to the west of Bari. It is nicknamed the "City of Olives", due to the numerous olive groves surrounding the cit ...

(near

Bari Bari ( , ; nap, label= Barese, Bare ; lat, Barium) is the capital city of the Metropolitan City of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, southern Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy a ...

) in the Kingdom of Naples. His compositional output consists of four books of pieces for five-course

. While many of Abatessa's contemporaries used the guitar as an accompaniment for the voice, Abatessa's main focus was on the guitar as a solo instrument. Abatessa's books contain instructions concerning the interpretation of the alphabeto tablature, the fingering of the chords, and the tuning of the guitar. The 1627 collection gives instructions regarding the execution of certain kinds of strum such as the trillo and repicco, while the 1635 book and the undated Ghirlanda di varii fiori contain a table of correspondences between alfabeto chords in different positions. The 1635 collection contains five

villanella In music, a villanella (; plural villanelle) is a form of light Italian secular vocal music which originated in Italy just before the middle of the 16th century. It first appeared in Naples, and influenced the later canzonetta, and from there also ...

s; others are found in the 1652 book, with, however, only the words and the accompanimental chords for guitar notated. The 1652 book also explains how to tune the guitar with the harp, presumably for the simultaneous playing of

Basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

parts.

Works

*''Corona di vaghi fiori'' (

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

, 1627) - contains battute solos in ''alfabeto'' notation. *''Cespuglio di varii fiori'' (

Orvieto Orvieto () is a city and ''comune'' in the Province of Terni, southwestern Umbria, Italy, situated on the flat summit of a large butte of volcanic tuff. The city rises dramatically above the almost-vertical faces of tuff cliffs that are compl ...

, 1635) - contains ''alfabeto'' solos, as well as songs in staff notation with ''alfabeto'' *''Intessatura di varii fiori'' (

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, 1645) - contains ''alfabeto'' solos. Known from a later edition, (

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

and

Lucca Lucca ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the Serchio River, in a fertile plain near the Ligurian Sea. The city has a population of about 89,000, while its province has a population of 383,957. Lucca is known as one o ...

, 1652). *''Ghirlanda di varii fiori'' (

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, c. 1650) - contains ''alfabeto'' solos.

References

Tyler, James. The Early Guitar: A History and Handbook. London: Music Dept., Oxford UP, 1980. Print. Italian male classical composers Italian Baroque composers Year of birth unknown 17th-century deaths 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian male musicians Musicians from the Kingdom of Naples {{Classical-guitarist-stub