Stefano Landi

Stefano Landi (baptized 26 February 1587 – 28 October 1639) was an Italian composer and teacher of the early Baroque Roman School. He was an influential early composer of opera, and wrote the earliest opera on a historical subject: Il Sant’Alessio (1632). Biography Landi was born in Rome, the capital of the Papal States. In 1595 he joined the Collegio Germanico in Rome as a boy soprano, and he may have studied with Asprilio Pacelli. Landi took minor orders in 1599 and began studying at the Seminario Romano in 1602. He is mentioned in the Seminary’s records as being the composer and director of a Carnival pastoral in 1607; and in 1611 his name appears as an organist and a singer, though he was already maestro di cappella at S Maria della Consolazione in 1614. Agostino Agazzari was maestro di cappella at the Seminario Romano, and he may have been one of Landi’s teachers as well. In 1618 he had moved to the north of Italy, and published a book of five-voice madrigals at Venice; apparently he had acquired a post as maestro di cappella at Padua. In addition he wrote his first opera in Padua, La morte d’Orfeo. Most likely it was used as part of the festivities for a wedding. His experien