Gualtieri, Alessandro (EN)

Gualtieri, Alessandro, *Verona, †25 April 1655 Cividale del Friuli, Italian composer and organist. From May 1601 he spent a year as a musician at the Accademia Filarmonica in Verona; between 1612 and 1616 he served as a musician for the Archbishop of Salzburg, and afterwards (until September 1621) he was maestro di cappella at the Church of S. Maria in Verona. On 5 October 1621 he was appointed choirmaster of the cathedral in Cividale del Friuli.

Gualtieri was among the first composers in the early 17th century to write solo motets. These works are comparatively more modern than his other concertato-style compositions, due to their pronounced rhythmic articulation, flexible and ornamented melodic lines, and the use of repeat signs for the opening section (creating an ABA-like architectural structure). In his 2–4 voice motets, the composer’s inventiveness is clearly restrained by the conventions of the late Renaissance motet, resulting in frequent use of basso seguente, occasional melodic ornamentation, straightforward harmonies, and typical figures of musical rhetoric. Gualtieri’s masses, written in polychoral technique, generally adhere to the stylistic norms of the period.

Literature: J.L.A. Roche North Italian Liturgical Music in the Early 17th Century, thesis at University of Cambridge 1968; La Musica a Verona, ed. C. Bologna, Verona 1976.