composer

Lappi, Pietro

Date of birth: c.1575
Date of death: c.1630

Pietro Lappi (c.1575 - c.1630) was an Italian composer of the Renaissance. He was born in Florence, but after 1593 he lived and worked in Brescia. He wrote mainly sacred music. He worked as maestro di cappella in the Santa Maria delle Grazie at Brescia. A famous work of his hand is a collection of ‘Canzoni da Suonare’ for 4-13 instruments, printed in Venice in 1616, without doubt a token of his relationship with the flourishing Brescian school of instrumentalists. In 1613 a book of Masses in both late-Renaissance and early baroque style was printed. In general he was rather traditional in his sacred music.
In 1621 he dedicated a setting of Psalm 112 (Laudate pueri) to Prince-Archbishop Paris Lodron of Salzburg, the man Salzburg University is named after. The acoustic properties of the Salzburg cathedral are especially suited for a work like this: 16 voices, and 3 or 4 chori concertati with cornetti, trombones, violins, viols and basso continuo.
His Mass for 8 voices in Venetian style that we have here, is less famous, but equally pleasant to hear and sing.