Giacomo Carissimi

(Gian) Giacomo Carissimi (; baptized 18 April 160512 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. Carissimi established the characteristic features of the Latin oratorio and was a prolific composer of masses, motets, and cantatas. He was highly influential in musical developments in northern European countries through his pupils, like Kerll in Germany and Charpentier in France, and the wide dissemination of his music. Biography Carissimi’s exact birthdate is not known, but it was probably in 1604 or 1605 in Marino near Rome, Italy. Of his early life almost nothing is known. Giacomo’s parents, Amico (1548–1633, a cooper by trade) and Livia (1565–1622), were married on 14 May 1595 and had four daughters and two sons; Giacomo was the youngest. Nothing is known of his early musical training. His first known appointments were at Tivoli Cathedral, under the maestri di cappella Aurelio Briganti Colonna, Alessandro Capece and Francesco Manelli; from October 1623 he sang in the choir, and from October 1624 to October 1627 he was the organist. In 1628 Carissimi moved nort