Kapsperger, Giovanni Girolamo [Giovanni Geronimo; Kapsberger, Johann Hieronymus; ‘Il Tedesco della tiorba’]

(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.

Kapsperger was a prolific, highly original and often extraordinary composer and was seminal in the development of the theorbo as a solo instrument. The theorbo collections contain virtuoso toccatas, variations and dances (some for a 19-course instrument) that combine arpeggiated sections, unusual rhythmic groupings, broken-style figuration and slurred passages within an ornamented and highly syncopated context that has many parallels with the keyboard works of Frescobaldi. The 1640 book also contains an important preface regarding performance. The 1611 lute book includes eight toccatas – described by Gilbert as ‘possibly the finest set of its kind in the Italian repertoire’ – that employ more fluid textures proceeding almost spontaneously from suspended harmonies over long pedals to recitative-style passages, motivic sequences, short ricercare sections and dramatic bursts of scales. Among his other instrumental works are one of the few collections of instrumental ensemble dances of this period (1615) and the more canzona-like Sinfonie a quattro of the same year, which feature solo-tutti contrasts, echo effects and multiple continuo parts.

In his vocal music, Kapsperger explored the limits of both Baroque opulence and Counter-Reformation austerity. The Mottetti passeggiati and Arie passeggiate contain monodies (1612) and duets (1623) with extensive (and sometimes exaggerated) written-out ornamentation. The larger Petrarch and Guarini settings stand out among the 1612 Arie (which are actually solo madrigals); the 1623 collection is less ornate, but more satisfying musically. The Mottetti suffer from lengthy and predictable florid passages but reflect aspects of current Roman taste and were influential in Germany. The Thomaskirche Kantor Tobias Michael acknowledged in his Musicalischer Seelen-Lust (1637) that ‘the art of Herr Kapsberger is very attractive to me, and I have followed him as much as I was able’. The madrigals of 1609 rely mainly on homorhythmic textures and reveal Kapsperger's awareness of current literary trends through his setting of Marino. But Kapsperger's most engaging and popular secular works (as testified by concordant versions) are found among his seven books of villanellas, which use simple poetry, set mostly syllabically in contrasting sections of duple and triple metre, often with attractive dance rhythms.

In the finely crafted Poematia et carmina (1624), Kapsperger's intense setting of Urban VIII's poetry was lauded by Doni for its absence of affectations and its ‘pure and simple’ melody. Similarly, the lavishly staged Apotheosis (1622) sets a monological Latin text to a remarkably restrained declamatory style, occasionally relieved by triple-time choruses. This stylistic template is maintained in the Christmas cantata I pastori di Bettelemme and the Litaniae Deiparae Virginis. The three Missae Urbanae, dedicated to Urban VIII, and the Cantiones sacrae (1628) feature homorhythmic textures as well, and in the case of the masses polychoral technique. Similar to the 1612 passeggiate collections but displaying greater sensitivity to textual-musical relationships are the motets of Modulatus sacri diminutis (1630) which employ lavish embellishment and challenging rhythmic figures (e.g. ‘Beata Dei genitrix’). Kapsperger's stage works, which include La vittoria del principe Vladislao in Valacchia (1625), an opera about the Polish-Turkish war of 1621, are all lost, apart from the Apotheosis.

In a time of intense musical polemics, Kapsperger was praised by moderns and conservatives, from the art collector Vincenzo Giustiniani and the world-traveller Pietro della Valle, to the neo-classic theorist G.B. Doni and the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher, who annointed him as the successor to Monteverdi. The collective applause offered from individuals of such diverse backgrounds testifies to the wide stylistic breadth and uncommon invention of a composer whose works are representative of early 17th-century Roman music.

WORKS

published in Rome unless otherwise stated

instrumental

sacred

secular vocal

stage

theoritical works

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AmbrosGM, iv

Grove6 (W. Witzenmann)

GroveO (V. Coelho)

L. Allacci: Apes urbanae, sive De viris illustribus (Rome, 1633), 159–60

G.B. Doni: De praestantia musicae veteris libri tres (Florence, 1647/R), 4, 32

G. Baini: Memorie storico-critiche della vita e delle opere di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (Rome, 1828/R), 353–9

P. Kast: ‘Biographische Notizen über Johann Hieronymus Kapsberger aus den Vorreden zu seinen Werken’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, xl (1960), 200–11

P. Kast: ‘Biographische Notizen zu römischen Musikern des 17. Jahrhunderts’, AnMc, no.1 (1963), 38–69, esp.47–8

P. Kast: ‘Tracce monteverdiane e influssi romani nella musica sacra del Kapsberger’, RIM, ii (1967), 287–93

O. Wessely: ‘Der Indice der Firma Franzini in Rom: Versuch einer Rekonstruktion’, Beiträge zur Musikdokumentation: Franz Grasberger zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. G. Brosche (Tutzing, 1975), 439–92

J. Forbes: The Non-Liturgical Vocal Music of Johannes Hieronymous Kapsberger (diss., U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1977)

V. Coelho: ‘Frescobaldi and the Lute and Chitarrone Toccatas of “Il Tedesco della tiorba’”, Frescobaldi Studies: Madison, WI, 1983, 137–56

V. Coelho: ‘G.G. Kapsberger in Rome, 1604–1645: New Biographical Data’, JLSA, xvi (1983), 103–133

V. Coelho: “Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger ‘della tiorba’ e l'influenza liutistica sulle Toccate di Frescobaldi”, Girolamo Frescobaldi: Ferrara 1983, 341–57

O.C. Henriksen: ‘Libro Primo di Sinfonie … del Signor Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger: the Music and Application Possibilities of Lute Family Instruments (thesis, Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, Basel, 1985)

A. and Z. Szweykowski: ‘Un'opera ignota di G.G. Kapsperger in onore del Principe Vladislao Waza’, Studi in onore di Giuseppe Vecchi, ed. I. Cavallini (Modena, 1989), 221–32

F. Hammond: Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome: Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII (New Haven, 1994)

E. Sala and F. Marincola: ‘La musica nei drammi Geuisitici: il caso dell' Apotheosis sive Consecratio Sanctorum Ignatii et Francisci Xaverii (1622)’, I Gesuiti e i primordi del teatro barocco in Europa, ed. M. Chiabò and F. Doglio (Viterbo, 1995), 389–440

V. Coelho: ‘Kapsberger's Apotheosis … of Francis Xavier (1622) and the Conquering of India’, The Work of Opera: Genre, Nationhood, and Sexual Difference, ed. R. Dellamora and D. Fischlin (New York, 1997), 27–47

Z.M. Szweykowski: ‘Kapsperger: Successor to Monteverdi?’, Claudio Monteverdi und die Folgen, ed. L. Silke and J. Steinheuer (Kassel, 1998), 311–25

VICTOR ANAND COELHO