Orazio Michi

Orazio Michi (b Alife, nr Caserta, 1594–5; d Rome, 26 Oct 1641). Italian composer and harpist. He was probably trained in Naples, but the earliest document of his life comes from Rome, where in February 1613 he joined the household of Cardinal Montalto, whom he served until the cardinal’s death in 1623.

In February 1614 Michi played the harp in performances of the pastiche opera Amor pudico, which celebrated the second marriage of Cardinal Montalto’s brother, Michele. By 1620 Michi was the most highly paid of Montalto’s many famous musicians. In 1622 the cardinal established an annual pension of 300 scudi for him, made up of income from two of the cardinal’s abbeys, and in his testament Montalto left Michi an additional pension of 2000 golden scudi a year, an income worthy of a cardinal.

After Montalto’s death Michi passed into the household of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy, whom he served until February 1630, possibly returning briefly from 1636 to 1638. He received additional patronage from Cardinals Pallotta, Bernardino Spada and Antonio Barberini. In 1639 André Maugars estimated Michi’s income at 5000–6000 silver scudi. In his testament Michi disposed of a carriage with horses, an organ, a harpsichord, a theorbo, a harp, a large library, a ruby that once belonged to Cardinal Montalto’s mother and 858 scudi in cash. His principal beneficiaries were the fathers of the scuole pie and the Oratorio di S Filippo Neri, for which he composed many sacred arias and cantatas during the last two decades of his life.

Michi was praised as a player of the double harp by Vincenzo Giustiniani in 1628, André Maugars in 1639, Pietro della Valle in 1640 and Severo Bonini in about 1650. His extant works number almost 100; most of these are in two Roman libraries (I-Rc and Rn) and a smaller number elsewhere in Rome (I-Rvat), Bologna (I-Bc) and Prague (CZ-Pnm). Five were published by Vincenzo Bianchi in Rome (RISM 16402). Like several other composers in Montalto’s household, Michi wrote works in which distinct sections of aria and recitative styles are set in opposition. There are in all 21 of these, 13 of which set canzonetta texts, often using only one strophe. One such is of Francesco Balducci’s Perdan quest’occhi il sole, which contains several different patterns of verse, each of which Michi sets in a contrasting style. Similar contrasts correspond to changes between versi sciolti and metrical verses in Michi’s setting of the anonymous Empio cor, core ingrato. These and other similar works are among the earliest that can be called cantatas according to the strictest modern definitions of the term. Of a high artistic calibre, they became important models for Luigi Rossi and other cantata composers in the Barberini household after Michi’s death.