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Artist
Luigi Balbi
1+ albums
italian17th century
about
Luigi Balbi (also Alvise Balbi; Fra Alvise/Luigi Balbi) (fl. 1585–1621; d. after 1621) Luigi Balbi—often identified in the sources as Fra Alvise (Luigi) Balbi, and sometimes Latinised as Aloysius/Aluigi—was a Venetian Franciscan friar, singer, organist, and chapelmaster active between the late 1580s and the early 1620s, and closely bound to the musical institutions of Padua and Venice. He was the nephew of Lodovico Balbi, the well-known Venetian chapelmaster, and his early professional formation is documented in the Paduan world of the Basilica of Saint Anthony (“Il Santo”), where from 1 August 1585 he served as a contralto singer; in June 1586 he also deputised for the second organist. In November 1587 he sought permission to leave Il Santo to accept the post of maestro di cappella at Santa Maria della Carità in Venice (the church attached to the former Scuola Grande, later the Gallerie dell’Accademia complex), a move that reflects both his professional ambition and the mobility expected of an able religious musician. His later career includes a return to Padua: modern summaries place him as maestro/conductor at the Cappella del Santo from 1615 to 1621, and his surviving works indicate a composer working comfortably within the late-Renaissance sacred idiom while participating in the stylistic currents that lead into the early Baroque. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.