Giovan Francesco Beccatelli

Giovanni Francesco Beccatelli
(b Florence, 8 Nov 1679; d ?Prato, 1734). Italian theorist and composer.

Beccatelli's early musical studies were under Virgilio Cionchi and G.M. Casini in Florence. By order of Grand Duke Cosimo III, he was made maestro di cappella and organist of Prato Cathedral in 1704 where he remained until his death. Although he composed a quantity of church music, Beccatelli was best known as a speculative writer on music theory and its history. As one of the Florentine neo-Pythagoreans of the late Baroque (cf Nigetti and Casini), Beccatelli treated problems of temperament and relied heavily on mathematical reasoning. Of particular interest is his contention that the 4th is a consonance (see Lustig). His supporting arguments include the construction of an hypothetical modo obbliquo in which all the intervals of the normal modo retto are reckoned from the highest rather than the lowest sounding note. The result is a recognition of triadic inversions as unstable analogues to the stable root position triads. In their novel accommodation of current practice to older theory, Beccatelli's theories reveal the problems of a transitional period.