Bai (also Baj), Tommaso

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Bai (also Baj), Tommaso

Bai (also Baj), Tommaso, Italian singer and composer; b. Crevalcuore, near Bologna, c. 1650; d. Rome, Dec. 22, 1714. He was a tenor at the Vatican, where he became maestro di cappella on Nov. 19, 1713. The best-known composition by Bai, follower of Palestrina, is a five-part Miserere sung during Holy Week in the Papal Chapel alternately with those by Allegri and Baini. It is reprinted in various collections (Choron, Burney, Peters). Other works of Bai are included in C. Proske’s Musica Divina (1853–63).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire