Domenico Gabrielli (15 April 1651 or 19 October 1659 – 10 July 1690) was an Italian

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

composer and one of the earliest known virtuoso

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

players, as well as a pioneer of cello music writing. Born in

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

, he worked in the orchestra of the church of San Petronio and was also a member and for some time president ''(principe)'' of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna. During the 1680s he also worked as a musician at the court of Duke

Francesco II d'Este Francesco II d'Este (6 March 1660 – 6 September 1694) was Duke of Modena and Reggio from 1662 to 1694. Biography He was born in Modena to Alfonso IV d'Este, duke of Modena, and Laura Martinozzi, niece of Cardinal Mazarin. His sister, Mary ...

Modena Modena (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena, in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. It has 184,739 inhabitants as of 2025. A town, and seat of an archbis ...

. Gabrielli wrote several operas as well as instrumental and vocal church works. He is especially notable as the composer of some of the earliest attested works for solo cello (two sonatas for cello and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

, a group of seven ricercari for unaccompanied cello, and a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the material accepted as officially written by an author or an ascribed author * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western canon, th ...

for two cellos). Among his contemporaries, his own virtuoso performances on this instrument earned him the nickname ''Mingain'' (or ''Minghino'') ''dal viulunzeel,'' a dialect form meaning "Dominic of the cello."

Works, editions and recordings

* ''Rodoaldo, re d' Italia'' − opera in 3 acts. Venice 1685 - manuscript in Modena. Recordings * Domenico Gabrielli - S. Sigismondo re di Borgogna - Oratorio per 5 voci con strumenti - Ensemble Les Nations, Maria Luisa Baldassari, direzione. Tactus, 2008 * Ricercars for solo cello - recordings (i) Roel Dieltens (ii) Hidemi Suzuki 2005 (iii) Richard Tunnicliffe 2007 (iv) Bruno Cocset, 2012 * Domenico Gabrielli. Cantate. Emanuela Galli, soprano, with ensemble Sistite Sidera. Stradivarius STR 33878 (1 CD, June 2012).

External links

* *S. Durante: ''Gabrielli'', in: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera,'' ed. S. Sadie. London 1992. Vol 2, p. 322. *W. Matteuzzi: ''Gabrielli'', in: ''Dizionario enciclopedico universale della musica e dei musicisti. 2: Le biografie,'' ed. A. Basso. Turin 1986. Vol. 3, p. 83f. *J. G. Suess: ''Gabrielli'', in: ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,'' ed. S. Sadie. London 1980. Vol 7, p. 67.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gabrielli, Domenico Italian Baroque composers Composers for cello 1650s births 1690 deaths Composers from Bologna Italian male classical composers 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian male musicians