Domenico Gabrielli

Who was Domenico Gabrielli?

Domenico Gabrielli was an Italian Baroque composer and virtuoso cello player. He was apparently not related to the Venetian Gabrielis.

Born in Bologna, he worked in the orchestra of the church of San Petronio and was also a member and for some time president of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna. During the 1680s he also worked as a musician at the court of Duke Francesco II d'Este of Modena.

Gabrielli wrote several operas as well as instrumental and vocal church works. He is especially notable as the composer of some of the earliest attested works for solo cello. Among his contemporaries, his own virtuoso performances on this instrument earned him the nickname Mingain dal viulunzeel, a dialect form meaning "Dominic of the cello."