Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger

Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger (b ?Venice, c1580; d Rome, Jan 1651). Italian composer, lutenist, theorbist and guitarist of German descent.

(He seems to have used the spelling ‘Kapsperger’ rather than the ‘Kapsberger’ favoured by German scholars.) His father, Colonel Guglielmo Kapsperger, was a noble military official with the Imperial House of Austria and may have settled in Venice. Kapsperger was in Rome soon after 1605, where through his reputation as a virtuoso and his status as a nobile alemano he moved in the circles of powerful families such as the Bentivoglio and the Barberini. Other supporters in Rome included the Orders of S Stefano and S Giovanni and the academies of the Umoristi and the Imperfetti whose members arranged for the publication of his works; the academies Kapsperger organized in his house were described as among the ‘wonders of Rome’. Around 1609 he married the Neapolitan Gerolima di Rossi, by whom he had at least three children. In 1612 his Maggio Cantata, dedicated to the Grand duchess Maria Maddalena, was performed in Florence at the Palazzo Pitti.

In 1622 his Apotheosis, on Jesuit themes, was performed at the Collegio Romano on the canonizations of the first two Jesuit saints, Ignatius Loyola and Francis Xavier; the most elaborate musical production in Rome before the Barberini operas, it marked the period of Kapsperger's deepening relationship with the papal circle. In 1624 his settings of verses by the newly-elected Pope Urban VIII Barberini were published as Poematia et carmina, which G.B. Doni forwarded enthusiastically to Mersenne. In the same year Kapsperger entered the service of Urban's nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, where for 30 years he worked alongside Frescobaldi, Luigi Rossi, Domenico Mazzocchi, Stefano Landi and Doni, and collaborated with the poets Ottavio Tronsarelli, Giovanni Ciampoli and Giulio Rospigliosi (the future Pope Clement IX). His son Filippo Bonifacio also joined Francesco's household. Doni wrote that Kapsperger's music was often sung ‘in the chamber of His Holiness’ and in 1626 and 1627 his masses were performed in the Cappella Sistina at Urban's request. Later, Doni denounced Kapsperger for attempting to replace Palestrina's music with his own at the Sistine Chapel, an allegation uncritically accepted by Hawkins and Ambros (and effectively contaminating Kapsperger's later reputation); Baini, however, remained sceptical of Doni's story and no such incident is documented, although other contemporary accounts describe him as an extraordinary talent but opportunistic, unco-operative and vainglorious. Kapsperger continued as a salaried member of Francesco's household until the death of Urban in 1644 and the dissolution of Francesco's establishment in 1646. Curiously, only two of his works were printed after 1633, when Allacci published an inventory of Kapsperger's music that included the titles of many additional collections that he was preparing for publication. Kapsperger died in 1651 and was buried in the church of St Blaise outside Rome.