Vincenzo Albrici (26 June 1631 in

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 ...

- 7 September 1687 in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

) was an Italian composer, brother of Bartolomeo and nephew of

Fabio Fabio is a given name descended from Latin '' Fabius'' and very popular in Italy and Latin America (due to Italian migration). Its English equivalent is Fabian. The name is written without an accent in Italian and Spanish, but is usually accented ...

and Alessandro Costantini. Albrici was born as the son of singer who settled from Marche in Rome. In 1641 he became a student at the

Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum The ''Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum'', or simply ''Collegium Germanicum'', is a German-speaking seminary for Catholic priests in Rome, founded in 1552. Since 1580 its full name has been ''Pontificium Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum de Urb''e ...

under Giacomo Carissimi. In 1647 he was paid as an organist in the

Santa Maria in Vallicella Santa Maria in Vallicella, also called Chiesa Nuova, is a church in Rome, Italy, which today faces onto the main thoroughfare of the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the corner of Via della Chiesa Nuova. It is the principal church of the Oratorians, ...

. In 1652 he was invited by Alessandro Cecconi and started to work for Queen Christina of Sweden together with his brother, who joined the boys' choir. His father, an alto, sang the

Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also called the Our Father or Pater Noster, is a central Christian prayer which Jesus taught as the way to pray. Two versions of this prayer are recorded in the gospels: a longer form within the Sermon on the Mount in the Gosp ...

in Swedish when the Queen abdicated in June 1654. Albrici stayed in Stockholm when Karl X Gustav became king. Then Albrici became joint ''vice-kapellmeister'' with Giovanni Andrea Bontempi under

Heinrich Schütz Heinrich Schütz (; 6 November 1672) was a German early Baroque composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as one of the most important composers of the 17th century. He ...

in Dresden (1659). Vincenzo's brother Bartolomeo Albrici, took up the position of organist. Vincenzo and his sister Leonora, also a singer, went to England and became part of the King's Italian Musicke. Bartolomeo joined them in 1666 and remained in England when Vincenzo returned to

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

. In 1681 he gained the post of organist at the

Thomaskirche , native_name_lang = , image = Leipzig Thomaskirche.jpg , imagelink = , imagealt = , caption = , pushpin map = , pushpin label position = , pushpin map alt ...

, a position which required conversion to

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

. A few months later, he moved to the Augustine church of St. Thomas, in Mala Strana, Prague for the rest of his life.

Works, editions and recordings

Most of his works in Dresden were destroyed in the nine-day July 1760 bombardment of Dresden by the Prussian army, but 35 vocal works survive in the Düben collection in

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Located north of the c ...

. *Concerti Sacri a 1, 2, 3 voci con strumenti, Cappella Augustana Matteo Messori. Label: Musica Rediviva.

Notes

References

· Matteo Messori, Anna Katarzyna Zaręba, "Nuovi documenti su Vincenzo Albrici (1631-1687) e la sua famiglia", ''Fonti Musicali Italiane'', 22 (2017) {{DEFAULTSORT:Albrici, Vincenzo Italian Baroque composers Italian male classical composers 1631 births 1690s deaths 17th-century Italian composers Court of Christina, Queen of Sweden