Agostini, Pietro Simone

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Agostini, Pietro Simone

Agostini, Pietro Simone, Italian composer; b. Forlì, e. 1635; d. (murdered) Parma, Oct. 1, 1680. He led an adventurous life. After being expelled from Forli due to his complicity in a murder, he studied music with Mazzaferrata in Ferrara. He saw military service in Crete and was made a Knight of the Golden Spur. In 1658 he commenced his career as a composer in Venice. In 1664 he went to Genoa and composed for the theater until his intimate association with a nun led to his banishment. He then went to Rome, where he became director of music at S. Agnese. Although Agostini excelled as a composer of secular cantatas, his opera Gl’inganni innocenti, ovvero L’Adalina was a notable success at its premiere in Ariccia, near Rome, in 1673. In 1679 he was called to the ducal court in Parma as maestro di cappella, but was murdered the next year.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire