Rossi, Francesco [de Rossi]

Rossi, Francesco [de Rossi]

Lorenzo Bianconi, revised by Jennifer Williams Brown

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.23882
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

Several Italian composers of this name were active between about 1650 and about 1725. Since Rossi is such
a common surname and since evidence is scarce, it is difficult to disentangle the biographies of these
composers.

The clearest identity is that of an opera composer active in Milan between 1658 and 1697, who was organist
at S Maria presso S Celso from 1667 until his death in 1697. He is surely the same person, described as
maestro di cappella there and at S Giovanni in Conca, who produced sacred music in Milan between 1689
and 1696. This Rossi set to music two librettos by Carlo Torre: La ricchezza schernita (dramma scenico-
morale, 12 February 1658; with three other composers) and L'Arianna (dramma scenico, Pavia, 15 July 1660).
He also furnished new music for a strongly opposed performance of Cavalli's Artemisia (June 1663) and set
the librettos Il Crispo (20 December 1663), by the impresario and comic singer Carlo Righenzi, and La farsa
musicale, also by Righenzi though likely to have been co-authored by Carlo Maria Maggi (Teatro Ducale, 9
February 1664). He collaborated with Lodovico Busca and P.S. Agostini on La Regina Floridea (Teatro
Ducale, ?1669), whose subject matter is drawn from Spanish comedy, and set at least one libretto by Carlo
Maria Maggi, La Bianca di Castiglia (Isola Bella, Lake Maggiore, theatre of Count Vitaliano Borromeo VI,
October 1669). Printed librettos survive for two sacred works performed in Milan: Cantate a gloria del
Santisimo Sacramento (19–21 February 1689) and I trionfi di Carmelo (oratorio, G.B. Merosi, 1696). His only
extant music is a solo motet, Flammae bellae (1692; ed. in SMSC, iii, New York, 1987), which is written in a
modern, operatic style, demands considerable vocal agility, and includes expressive modulations to B♭
minor.

A Don [Nicolò] Francesco [de] Rossi, who, contrary to Bellucci's claims (1885), was not the Francesco
Tomaso de Rossi born on 17 June 1627, was a canon of Bari Cathedral and on 16 January 1677 was appointed
maestro di cappella there. However, from 31 July 1681 he was forced to share the position with his rival
Alonzo Ramirez (see Fabris). Records in Bari indicate that Rossi moved to Venice to compose operas about
1686. Indeed, Bonlini credits a Francesco Rossi with composing three works given in Venice at the Teatro S
Moisè: Il Seiano moderno della Tracia (A. Girapoli, 1686; withdrawn before completion of the first
performance), La Corilda (?P.E. Badi) and La pena degl'occhi (both 1688). Later theatre chronicles refer to
this composer as ‘abate pugliese’. When his Salmi et messa a cinque voci op.1 was published (Venice, 1688),
Rossi was still canon of Bari Cathedral. He is probably the ‘abate Francesco Rossi’ who was elected maestro
di cappella of the Venetian Ospedale dei Mendicanti on 22 July 1689, retiring on 8 January 1699. He may
have written three psalm introductions (short oratorios) for the Mendicanti: Divina Gratiae Triumphus
(1691), Patientia Victrix (1694) and Carmina praecinenda psalmo miserere a Filabus Xenodochi (see Selfridge-
Field, 1985).

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Rossi, Francesco [de Rossi]

According to Baldauf-Berdes and Fabris, the ‘Medicanti’ Rossi was the same ‘Don Francesco Rossi’ who
was maestro di cappella of the Neapolitan conservatory S Onofrio from November 1669 to February 1672.
This Rossi probably composed several works now in Neapolitan libraries: an oratorio, La caduta de gl'angeli
(G. Scaglione; I-Nf), two psalm settings for four voices with violins (copies, dated 1797, in Nf), and three
cantatas, Vanne, foglio volante (ed. in Fabris), Ove L'Adria fastosa and Son degno di pietà.

The title ‘abate’ is also applied to the ‘D. Francesco Rossi’ who composed an oratorio for five voices and
instruments S Filippo Neri (A-Wn), the ‘Bassi’ who wrote six cantatas (in I-Nc, see Fabris) and to the
‘Russi’ whose cantata Lunga stagione dolente (c1700) survives among arias by Scarlatti and Bononcini (
E-Mn).

Although Fétis claimed to have taken the aria ‘Ah, rendimi quel core’, which he popularized in the 19th
century, from Rossi's Mitrane of 1689, no such opera existed. The aria is in late 18th-century style and
doubtless came from an opera including a character named Mitrane. A likely candidate is Francesco
Bianchi's La vendetta di Nino (Naples, 1790); the role of Mitrane was sung by a Francesco Rossi at Verona in
1794 (as La morte di Semiramide). According to this singer Sartori performed in at least 44 productions in
Italy and Portugal between 1782 and 1799. Two other opera singers named Francesco Rossi are known
during the 17th and 18th centuries. One, a soprano from Rome who performed in Genoa between 1678 and
1679, may be the Rossi who was dean of the papal cappella and lived from about 1658 to 1733 (see Kast). The
other, also known as Francesco Rolfi (see Alm), appeared in Venice, Cremona and Rovigo in the 1750s.
Bonlini attributed to a ‘D. Francesco Rossi’ the music for La ninfa Apollo (pastorale, after F. Lemene;
Murano, Teatro S Michiel, 1726). A Francesco Rossi ‘Dottore Veneziano’ wrote several opera librettos for
Venice between 1699 and 1719. A ‘Don Francesco Rossi’ played the violone at S Marco, Venice, from 1665 to
at least 1691; and a Francesco Rossi was a member of the Venetian instrumentalists' guild in 1727 (see
Selfridge-Field, 1971). During the same period at least two other musicians of this name are traceable in
Rome (see Celani, Casimiri, Kast).

Bibliography
AllacciD

FétisB

GiacomoC

SartoriL

C. Bonlini: Le glorie della poesia e della musica (Venice, 1730/R)

M.A. Bellucci: ‘I musicisti baresi’, Rassegna pugliese di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2 (1885), 197

E. Celani: ‘I cantori della cappella pontificia nei secoli XVI–XVIII’, RMI, 16 (1909), 53–112

R. Casimiri: ‘L'antica congregazione di S. Cecilia fra i musici di Roma nel secolo XVII’, NA, 1 (1924), 116–29

E. Dagnino: ‘Ancora degli oratori di Bernardo Pasquini’, NA, 11 (1934), 68–9

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Rossi, Francesco [de Rossi]

G. Barblan: ‘Il teatro musicale in Milano nei secoli XVII e XVIII’, Storia di Milano, 12 (Milan, 1959), 947–96 [pubn of the
Fondazione Treccani degli Alfieri per la storia di Milano]

P. Kast: ‘Biographische Notizen zu römischen Musikern des 17. Jahrhunderts’, AnMc, no.1 (1963), 38–69

L.G. Clubb: Italian Plays (1500–1700) in the Folger Library (Florence, 1968), 225–6

E. Selfridge-Field: ‘Annotated Membership Lists of the Venetian Instrumentalists’ Guild, 1672–1727’, RMARC, no.9
(1971), 1–52, esp. 39; see also additions, no.12 (1974), 152–5

E. Selfridge-Field: Venetian Instrumental Music from Gabrieli to Vivaldi (Oxford, 1975, 3/1994), 302

D. Borroni: L’Archivio musicale della chiesa di Santa Maria Presso San Celso in Milano (thesis, U. of Milan, 1985)

E. Selfridge-Field: Pallade Veneta: Writings on Music in Venetian Society 1650–1750 (Venice, 1985)

J. Baldauf-Berdes: Women Musicians of Venice: Musical Foundations 1525–1855 (Oxford, 1993)

I. Alm: Catalogue of Venetian Librettos at the University of California, Los Angeles (Berkeley, 1993)

D. Fabris: ‘Vita musicale a Bari dal Medioevo al Settecento’, La musica a Bari, ed. D. Fabris and M. Renzi (Bari, 1993),
19–108

C. Gianturco: Allessandro Stradella 1639–1682: his Life and Music (Oxford, 1994)

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