Giuseppe Paoloucci (May 25, 1726 – April 24, 1776) was an Italian composer, conductor and organist of
Baroque music
Baroque music ( or ) refers to the period or dominant style of Western classical music composed from about 1600 to 1750. The Baroque style followed the Renaissance period, and was followed in turn by the Classical period after a short transiti ...
.
Life and work
Giuseppe Paolucci was the only son of Domenico di Giuseppe and Anna Maria di Stefano Lucatelli. From 1729 to 1741 he was registered with his father and his second wife Francesca Soldi as a member of the Sienese parish of
San Pietro a Ovile. He was educated in the convent of the monastery of
San Francesco in
Prato
Prato ( , ) is a city and ''comune'' in Tuscany, Italy, the capital of the Province of Prato. The city lies in the north east of Tuscany, at the foot of Monte Retaia, elevation , the last peak in the Calvana chain. With more than 200,000 i ...
and in the
monastery of Santa Croce in
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 ...
and was a member of the
Franciscan order
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
. From March 1750 he studied counterpoint at the Convent of
San Francesco in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
with Padre
Giambattista Martini and then in 1756 became ''Maestro di Capella'' of
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari
The Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, usually just called the Frari, is a church located in the Campo dei Frari at the heart of the San Polo district of Venice, Italy. The largest church in the city, it has the status of a minor basil ...
in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...
. He left Venice in August 1769 and in 1770 took over the work of conductor and organist at the church of San Martino in Senigallia attached to the monastery. From February 1772 until his death he was capellmeister at the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi.
Paolucci conducted an extensive correspondence of around 150 letters (archived in the
Museo della Musica,
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
) with Padre Martini on musical and other artistic subjects. The catalog of handwritten works by Paolucci includes more than 200 compositions of sacred music and instrumentals, which are now mainly kept in Bologna (Museo della Musica) and Assisi (
Archives of the Basilica and the Convent of San Francesco). His famous treatise on counterpoint ''Arte pratica del contrappunto'' was published in 3 volumes and printed in Venice (1765 and 1772).
Bibliography
* R. Morrocchi, La musica in Siena, Siena 1886, p. 117;
* L. Busi, Il padre G.B. Martini, musicista-letterato del secolo XVIII, Bologna 1891, pp. 381 s.;
* G. Radiciotti, Teatro, musica e musicisti in Sinigaglia, Milano 1893, pp. 127–129;
* F. Vatielli, Lettere di musicisti brevemente illustrate, Pesaro 1917, pp. 48–53;
* D.M. Sparacio, Musicisti minori conventuali, con più diffusa menzione di coloro che vissero dal 1700 ai giorni nostri, in Miscellanea francescana, XXV (1925), pp. 92–94;
* Assisi. La cappella della Basilica di S. Francesco. Catalogo del fondo musicale nella Biblioteca comunale di Assisi, a cura di C. Sartori, Milano 1962, ad ind.;
* G. Zanotti - M. Pollastri, Biblioteca del convento di S. Francesco di Bologna. Catalogo del fondo musicale, I-III, Bologna 1970-84, ad ind.;
* A. Sartori, Documenti per la storia della musica al Santo e nel Veneto, a cura di E. Grossato, Vicenza 1977, ad ind.;
* A. Schnoebelen, Padre Martini's collection of letters, New York 1979, pp. 452–469, nn. 3804-3948;
* G. Magrino, P. G. P.: vita e opere, tesi, Milano, Pontificio Istituto ambrosiano di Musica sacra, a.a. 1996-97;
* Catalogo del fondo musicale della Biblioteca del Sacro Convento di S. Francesco di Assisi. Fondo del maestro di cappella, a cura di F. Tuscano - F. Tuscano, Padova 1999, ad ind.;
* H. Brofsky, P., G., in The New Grove dict. of music and musicians, a cura di S. Sadie, XIX, London 2001, p. 52;
* E. Pasquini, L'«Esemplare, o sia Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto». Padre Martini teorico e didatta della musica, Firenze 2004, ad ind.;
* Ead., Giambattista Martini, Palermo 2007, ad ind.;
* G. P. «Preces» a otto voci per le quarant'ore, a cura di A. Zanotelli, Padova 2008;
* E. Pasquini, Padre Martini in giudizio da Apollo, in Il Saggiatore musicale, XVI (2009), pp. 185–202;
* F. Tuscano - F. Tuscano, Fonti per la storia della cappella musicale del Sacro Convento di Assisi, in Gli antichi strumenti della cappella musicale. Saggi e catalogo, Assisi 2013, pp. 24–27.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Paolucci, Giuseppe
18th-century Italian composers
Italian Baroque composers
Italian conductors (music)
Italian organists
Baroque music
Musicians from Siena
1726 births
1776 deaths