Physical Release: 26 September 2025
Digital Release: 3 October 2025
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| Composer(s) | Alessandro Piccinini, Angelo Michele Bartolotti, Bellerofonte Castaldi, Giacomo Antonio Pfender, Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger, Girolamo Viviani |
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Silence: that silence which swiftly and infinitely connected the performer to the absolute, to a sense of sacredness in the musical act that today is all but forgotten. A silence not merely imposed by the Harpocratic gesture, but deeply felt within, suspending the onset of sound. In that moment, the millennia-long history of humankind would condense—the tension between the unknown and the material, the painful joy of knowing that the act about to unfold would be fleeting, yet necessary. This is but a small, albeit immense, example of what we have lost—something that once was life, necessity, and hope.
Today, we are drowning in music histories that demand narratives about composers and works, with clear beginnings and, ideally, some sort of development. Stories that must necessarily seek out “genius” composers whose “voice” marked our cultural heritage. But none of this shaped our path—at least not until well into the nineteenth century. Those earlier composers shared a mother tongue: counterpoint. And with that language, they conversed, they grew together. The singer, if fluent in that language, became a bridge-builder, extending a hand to colleagues and sketching sonic architectures. And the instrumentalist followed the same path.
Such was the fate of theorbo players—or rather, chitarrone players. The first documented references to this peculiar instrument date back to the 1580s, at the Medici court in Florence. It was originally what they called a “large lute,” fitted with a special tuning in which the third course, like all others doubled, was the highest. Later, likely between the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a second pegbox (the tratta) was added to accommodate a series of lower-pitched strings, eventually bringing the instrument to its maximum of 19 courses.
At the turn of the century, musicians began to recognize the chitarrone’s potential as a solo instrument. Its unique range—focused on the bass—and the addition of extra-low strings (inspired by the archlute, invented by Alessandro Piccinini) gave the chitarrone a distinctive timbral identity. This was first fully realized by a young Venetian of German descent, Johannes Hieronymus Kapsperger (1580–1651—though even his birthdate remains uncertain). Already as a youth, alongside his “most beloved brother” Giacomo Antonio Pfender, even younger than he, Kapsperger became one of the instrument’s foremost exponents.
He published his first book for the chitarrone in 1604, showcasing his total mastery of the instrument. He would go on to write five more books for it, though only three survive today. His language is bold and iconoclastic, overturning the established rules of lute music with his daring metric design, obsessive timbral explorations, extreme virtuosity, and dramatic formal contrasts. Following in his footsteps, many musicians embraced the chitarrone, gifting us with magnificent works.
Kapsperger’s travels—from Venice to Augsburg, back to Venice, then Naples, and finally Rome under the patronage of Urban VIII and the Barberini family—helped spread this newly discovered solo instrument. Anne-Marie Dragosits’s research is shedding light on many still-obscure aspects of Kapsperger’s life: his peculiar childhood with his obsessive mother Dorothea Hummel, likely responsible for her husband’s death when Johannes was still an infant; his early years in Rome at the White Lion inn run by his mother and stepfather Hieronymus Pfender; his education in Germany and Naples; and his eventual return to Rome.
Kapsperger became a pivotal figure in the new music—the seconda pratica—also in the vocal sphere, publishing madrigals, arias, villanelle, and sacred motets. Despite his abrasive temperament and occasional arrogance, he became a towering figure in the world of lute and chitarrone music. The few surviving works by his brother Giacomo Antonio Pfender—Dorothea’s son from her second marriage—reveal a style closely related to Kapsperger’s, as shown in the striking Battaglia, likely the very piece cited by Johannes Hieronymus in his own Battaglia from the Libro Quarto d’Intavolatura di Chitarrone (Rome, 1640).
A different story is that of Alessandro Piccinini (1566–before April 15, 1639). Born into a family of virtuoso lutenists in Bologna, he became a foundational figure in the history of both the lute and the chitarrone. Together with his father Leonardo Maria and brothers Giacomo and Filippo, he moved to the Este court in Ferrara. Following the 1597 devolution of the duchy to the Papal States, they settled in Rome, and eventually split: Giacomo died in the Low Countries; Filippo went to Spain, only returning years later to die in 1648. Alessandro returned to Bologna and maintained close ties with the powerful Bentivoglio family for many years.
In 1623, Piccinini published his groundbreaking Intavolatura di liuto, et di chitarrone, Libro Primo with the heirs of Giovanni Paolo Moscatelli. This volume demonstrates his supreme instrumental artistry—firmly rooted in the extraordinary Ferrarese tradition, yet attentive to new trends. His command of counterpoint, that mother tongue, is at its peak here, accompanied by a rich set of rules and observations for playing the lute and chitarrone—unmatched in the Italian tradition. By “lute,” Piccinini meant the archlute—the very instrument he invented in collaboration with the luthier Heberle in Padua, which would shape European music for the next two centuries. This invention inspired, as mentioned, the addition of the tratta to the chitarrone.
Initially reluctant to compose for the new instrument—as we know from his letters—Piccinini began by adapting archlute works for the chitarrone. But by 1623, the pieces in his volume reveal his full command of the instrument’s idiom: far from Kapsperger’s eccentricities, his style follows the lofty path of Luzzasco Luzzaschi, while remaining strikingly original. Piccinini’s son, Leonardo Maria, would publish a second book of intabulations in 1639, dedicated to Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio. While some works likely bear Alessandro’s hand, others are probably by his son, and still others are drawn—undisclosed—from foreign sources like Antoine Francisque’s repertoire. The Piccininis’ musical legacy would end with Leonardo Maria, closing a centuries-long lineage.
A more eclectic and anarchic figure was Bellerofonte Castaldi (1580–1649), a brilliant Modenese polymath and extraordinary theorbo player. He preferred the name tiorba—a term that would definitively replace chitarrone from the 1630s onward. Admirer and acquaintance of Claudio Monteverdi, friend of poets like Fulvio Testi, restless dweller of Modena and frequent traveler (Naples, Venice), often at odds with the law, Castaldi was also a poet—sharp-tongued and unapologetically scornful toward the people and social environments he despised.
In 1622, he published a seminal volume for the theorbo, Capricci a due strumenti, cioè Tiorba e Tiorbino, engraved entirely by his own hand on copper plates in various printings. The tiorbino, an octave higher variant of the theorbo, was his own invention. Castaldi’s music is dedicated to the pursuit of refined timbral beauty, demanding an extreme kind of virtuosity—not the superficial virtuosity of speed, but one that delves into the soul of the instrument, bringing it to light and making it known.
Also from the Emilia region was Angelo Michele Bartolotti (early 17th century–after 1699), a highly gifted guitarist and theorbo player who travelled extensively between Italy and France. His few surviving pieces for theorbo are exquisitely crafted, blending Italian and French idioms, and accompanied by an important method for the instrument published in Paris in 1669.
Not far stylistically from Bartolotti is the anonymous author of a manuscript preserved in the Modena State Archives—traditionally attributed to Girolamo Viviani, though he was likely only its owner. The extraordinary passacaglia it contains, with its long sequence of remarkable variations, leads us back to silence—that resounding silence we so desperately need today.
Franco Pavan
Italian lutenist, composer and writer on music. His father, Leonardo Maria Piccinini, his brothers Girolamo and Filippo (see below) and his son Leonardo Maria were all lutenists too. Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga summoned him to his court at Mantua in 1582, but, because of commitments that his Father had entered into, he went instead with his family to the Este court at Ferrara, where he and his brothers remained until the death of Duke Alfonso II on 27 October 1597. He then entered the service of Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, papal legate at Bologna and Ferrara, who died in 1621. He was a member of the Accademia dei Filomusi, Bologna. Three autograph letters from him survive (in I-MOs), one of 31 January 1595 to the Duke of Ferrara and two, of 2 June 1622 and 1 January 1623, to the Duke of Modena.
Piccinini published two volumes, Intavolatura di liuto, et di chitarrone, libro primo, nel quale si contengano dell’uno, & dell’altro stromento arie, baletti, correnti, gagliarde, canzoni, & ricercate musicali, & altre à dui, e trè liuti concertati insieme; et una inscrittione d’avertimenti, che insegna la maniera, & il modo di ben sonare con facilità i sudetti stromenti (Bologna, 1623: facs and edn. in AntMI, Monumenta bononiensis, ii, 1962) and Intavolatura di liuto, nel quale si contengono toccate, ricercate musicali, corrente, gagliarde, chiaccone, e passacagli alla vera spagnola, un bergamasco, con varie partite, una battaglia, & altri capricci (Bologna, 1639), which was seen through the press after his death by his son. The first of these volumes has a particularly important preface in which he described a type of archlute that he claimed to have developed and had made in Padua in 1594. While these claims have aroused scholarly controversy (see in particular Kinsky, and MGG1), Piccinini’s claim to have invented the archlute – the first extended-neck lute – in the 1590s is plausible, although the extended-neck chitarrone (as a restrung and retuned bass lute) predated his invention. Piccinini also made significant modifications to the chitarrone and according to Giustiniani invented an instrument ‘similar to the kithara of Apollo’, which he called a pandora and which was perhaps akin to the English poliphant (see Bandora). His preface also includes a short but detailed manual on performance, which advances several interesting ideas: in imitative writing the theme must be played louder so that it stands out; a technique of playing forte and piano (‘ondeggiato’) should be adopted in pieces rich in dissonances, which should be highlighted (as, according to him, they were at Naples); embellishments should be left to the taste of the player, but the cadential gruppo should always be pronounced, its notes being given equal value, and it should be completed as quickly as possible. Piccinini was a talented composer. His toccatas, which are very varied in form and style, are specially rewarding. The dances have attractive melodies and varied, piquant rhythms; some of them are arranged in suites. Piccinini wrote the music (apparently lost) to La selva sin amore (libretto by Lope de Vega Carpio), the first opera performed om Spain.
After working with him at the Ferrara court, Piccinini’s brothers both went abroad: Girolamo (b Bologna; d Flanders, 1615) entered the service of Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio and accompanied him when he was appointed papal nuncio in Flanders, and Filippo (b Bologna; d Bologna, 1648) worked at the Spanish court until about 1645, when he returned to Bologna; a two-part madrigal by Filippo survives
Angelo Michele Bartolotti: (b Bologna, early 17th century; d ?Paris, after 1668). Italian composer, guitarist and theorbo player. After publishing two books of his guitar music in Italy, Bartolotti moved to Paris. On the title-page of a treatise on continuo accompaniment for the theorbo, the author is described as ‘Angelo Michele Bartolomi Bolognese’, but there is little question that ‘Bartolomi’ is simply a misspelling of Bartolotti. In France Bartolotti was admired principally as a theorbo player: Ouvrard praised him as ‘without doubt the most skilful theorbo player in France and Italy’, and Constantijn Huygens also mentioned him as a virtuoso on that instrument.
Bartolotti’s first book for the five-course guitar contains a cycle of passacaglias in all the major and minor keys, combining the battute and pizzicato styles seen earlier in the music of Foscarini. His second book shows a more pronounced French influence, with an emphasis on pizzicato textures. These two books are among the most carefully notated Italian guitar tablatures of the period, with indications for various types of strum, arpeggios and left-hand ornaments, and contain some of the most advanced guitar music of the day. Bartolotti’s treatise ranks, with those of Fleury (1660) and Delair (1690), among the most noteworthy essays on accompaniment for the theorbo.
Bellerofonte Castaldi
(b Collegara, nr Modena, 1580; d Modena, 27 Sept 1649). Italian composer, theorbo player, lutenist, guitarist and poet. He was one of the most colourful musicians of his day. Outspoken and independent, his satirical writings frequently resulted in imprisonment or banishment, and he was no stranger to the violence of his times. He participated in the killing of the murderer of one of his brothers and was permanently maimed by a bullet wound to his left foot. As a young man his restless spirit and frequent altercations led him to travel widely to Germany and throughout Italy. While in the service of Cardinal Alessandro d'Este in 1619, Castaldi resided in Rome, and he lived there again in 1630. The rest of his time was spent mainly in his beloved Modena and in Venice, where he was most at home with his small circle of friends – musicians, artists and writers, among them the controversial poets Fulvio Testi and Alessandro Tassoni. Castaldi was generous in his praise of his fellow theorbo player J.H. Kapsberger. He was also one of the early commentators to recognize the genius of his friend Monteverdi. Much of this information is revealed in Castaldi's long verse autobiography, letters and poems.
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.
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