Ferretti, Dom Paolo

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Ferretti, Dom Paolo

Ferretti, Dom Paolo, eminent Italian musicologist; b. Subiaco, Dec. 3, 1866; d. Bologna, May 23, 1938. He studied theology at the Benedictine Coll. of S. Anselmo in Rome, taking his vows as a Benedictine monk in 1884 and being ordained a priest in 1890. From 1900 to 1919 he was abbot of the Benedictine monastery of S. Giovanni in Parma; in 1922 he was made director of the Scuola Pontificia by Pope Piux XI, which became the Pontificio Istituo di Musica Sacra in 1931. He was an authority on Gregorian chant.

Writings

Princippi teorici e pratici di canto gregoriano (Rome, 1905); El Cursus Metrico e il ritmo delle melodie del Canto Gregoriano (Rome, 1913); Estetica gregoriana ossia Trattato delle forme musicali del canto gregoriano (Rome, 1934); P. Ernetti, ed., Estetica gregoriana dei recitativi liturgici (Venice, 1964).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire