Frescobaldi, Girolamo

(baptized mid-September 1583, Ferrara – 1 March 1643, Rome)

   Composer of three dozen motets in both stile antico and Baroque styles, and two masses, he is renowned chiefly for his keyboard works and great influence on organ playing well into the 18th century.

   He was elected organist of the Cappella Giulia in Rome in 1608 and assumed his position on 29 October. In November 1628, he became organist to Grand Duke Ferdinando II of Tuscany but returned to the Cappella Giulia under the patronage of the Barberini family in April 1634. In his last years he played regularly for the Oratorio del Crocifisso during Lent.

   The first major composer to concentrate on instrumental music, Frescobaldi composed more than 125 works in every keyboard genre of his time, some of which were useful in liturgy: toccatas, fantasias, canzonas, ricercars, which exhibited the imitative art of Franco-Flemish counterpoint. The only publication explicitly for liturgy was his late collection Fiori Musicali (1635).