BERNABEI, ERCOLE

BERNABEI, ERCOLE. - Musician, b. at Caprarola between 1620 and 1622, d. at Munich in 1687. A pupil of Orazio Benevoli, in 1663 he was organist at S. Luigi de' Francesi in Rome; from there he moved on as maestro di cappella at St. John Lateran, then at the Giulia in the Vatican, until in 1674 he left for Munich, as court maestro di cappella. He wrote much theater and sacred music, masses, psalms, hymns, Te Deum, for 4 and 8 voices, as well as works of the madrigalian genre. He bends sound masterfully to the demands of ideas and words, and infuses into monody and declamation a color and a warmth that prelude the imminent grandeur of dramatic discourse and theatrical melody.

Son and pupil of Ercole, as well as his successor in the court chapel, was GIUSEPPE ANTONIO, b. in Rome in 1649, d. at Munich on 9 March 1732. He too wrote psalms, motets, hymns, Magnificat, offertories and masses, of which he published a collection (Sex Missarum brevium, cum una pro defunctis, for 4 voices with instruments) printed at Augsburg in 1710. His works lie in manuscript in the Liceo musicale of Bologna, and many were published by Proske in his Musica Divina, II and III, Regensburg 1854-59.