Michelangelo Rossi

Who was Michelangelo Rossi?

Michelangelo Rossi was an important Italian composer, violinist and organist of the Baroque era.

Rossi was born in Genoa, where he studied with his uncle, Lelio Rossi, at the Cathedral of San Lorenzo. Around the year 1624 he moved to Rome to enter the service of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy. It was there that he met the madrigal composer Sigismondo d'India as well as the keyboard composer Girolamo Frescobaldi, with whom he may have studied. Rossi's two books of madrigals, which have only recently come to scholarly attention, were likely written during this period. Rossi's madrigal output from this period is remarkably chromatic, to a level mached only by the music of such experimental composers as Carlo Gesualdo. The circumstances of Rossi's dismissal from the Cardinal's service in 1629 are unclear.

Rossi's first known opera dates from his second period of Roman service, while in the retinue of the wealthy Taddeo Barberini. His opera Erminia sul Giordano was premiered during the Carnival of 1633 at the theatre of the Palazzo Barberini, and appeared in print four years later. A second opera, Andromeda was first performed in Ferrara in 1638.