ALBERTI, DOMENICO. — Composer, born in 1710 in Venice, died there in 1740. Of noble family, he cultivated music not professionally; a pupil of the priest Antonio Biffi and of Antonio Lotti, he was an acclaimed harpsichordist and singer. He composed motets and stage works (Endimione, 1737, and Galatea e Olimpiade, ca. 1737–1740). His name is particularly associated with the elegant Sonatas for harpsichord (8 published by Walsh in London, others in manuscript at the British Museum) and with the accompanimental figuration for the harpsichord that took its name from him, the “Alberti bass,” though recent criticism ascribes it to F. M. Maichelbeck, consisting in a broken-chord figuration.
BIBL.: F. Torrefranca, Poeti minori del claviembalo, in Riv. mus. ital., 1910; id., Le origini dello stile mozzartano, ibid., 1921.