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Denis Gaultier
Life Denis Gaultier was a French lutenist and composer born in Paris, though sources differ on whether his birth year was 1597 or 1603; he died in 1672. A cousin of the lutenist Ennemond Gaultier, Denis Gaultier’s career was so closely intertwined with his older cousin’s early on that contemporaries often referred to either man…
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Ennemond Gaultier
Life Ennemond Gaultier, known as ‘Vieux Gaultier’ or ‘Gaultier de Lyon,’ was a French lutenist and composer born around 1575 in Villette, Dauphiné, and died on 11 December 1651. He worked first in Lyon before becoming valet to the Queen Mother Marie de’ Medici and a court lutenist in Paris around 1620, and is thought…
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Charles Mouton
Life Charles Mouton was a French lutenist and composer born in 1617 who died sometime before 1699. Musicians were active on his mother’s side of the family, one of whom served at the French royal court. By 1664 Charles Mouton was living in Paris, where he taught several affluent students, and in 1673 he performed…
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Jacques Gallot
Life Jacques Gallot, called ‘le vieux Gallot de Paris,’ was a French lutenist and composer born around 1625 and thought to have died around 1695 in Paris. He came from a family of Parisian lutenists, probably the son of the lutenist Antoine Gallot, who served at the Polish court until 1647, and was the brother…
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René Mesangeau
Life René Mesangeau was a French lutenist and composer whose exact birth date is unknown; he died around January 1638 in Paris. In 1619 he settled definitively in France and married the daughter of the spinet maker Jean Jacquet, and in 1621 King Louis XIII appointed René Mesangeau Musicien ordinaire du Roi at the French…
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Alessandro Piccinini
Life Alessandro Piccinini was an Italian lutenist and composer born in Bologna in 1566 into a musical family; his father, Leonardo Maria Piccinini, taught lute to Alessandro and his brothers Girolamo and Filippo. He held appointments at the Este court in Ferrara from 1582 to 1597 and later served Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, papal legate at…
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Girolamo Kapsberger
Life Girolamo Kapsberger, also known as Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger or Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger, was a composer and virtuoso performer of the early Baroque period, born around 1580, probably in Venice, to a family of noble German descent. Nothing certain is known of his early training. After 1605 he moved to Rome, where he quickly earned…
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Bellerofonte Castaldi
Life Bellerofonte Castaldi was an Italian composer, theorbo player, lutenist, guitarist, singer, poet, and artist, born in 1580 in Collegara, near Modena, and died in Modena on 27 September 1649. One of the most colorful musicians of his day, he led an adventurous and often turbulent life; his outspoken, politically charged, and frequently licentious satirical…
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Simone Molinaro
Life Simone Molinaro was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance, born around 1570 in Genoa and died there in May 1636. He studied music with his uncle, Giovanni Battista Dalla Gostena, maestro di cappella at Genoa Cathedral; after Gostena was murdered in 1593, Simone Molinaro succeeded him in that post in 1599. That same…
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Vincenzo Galilei
Life Vincenzo Galilei was an Italian lutenist, composer, and music theorist, born on 3 April 1520 and died on 2 July 1591. His children included the astronomer Galileo Galilei and the lutenist-composer Michelagnolo Galilei. Before 1562 he moved to Pisa, where he married Giulia Ammannati of a noble family. An accomplished lute player, Vincenzo Galilei…