ArtistInfo

Michelangelo Rossi

vn, 1601-1656 IT, Genoa
Musician / Composer of Classical

Michelangelo Rossi (Michel Angelo del Violino) (ca. 1601/1602 – 1656) 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 (1601-1638), 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 matched only by the music of such experimental composers as Carlo Gesualdo. The circumstance