Pasquali, Francesco (EN)

Pasquali, Pasquale, Pascale, Paschali, Francesco, **late 16th century Cosenza (near Naples), †after 1644 (?), Italian composer. He studied in Rome, and from 1622 to 1631 he was maestro di cappella in Viterbo, a protégé of Cardinal T. Muti, Bishop of Viterbo and Toscanelli, to whom he dedicated his last two collections. In 1631–1632, he was maestro di cappella of the cathedral in Todi. He signed the dedication of Op. 6 on 20 December 1632 in Ancona, and in 1635 he unsuccessfully sought the position of maestro di cappella at the cathedral in Urbino. In 1638, he was choirmaster in Orte, and from 1640 to 1644 at the Cavalieri di Santo Stefano in Pisa. Pasquali’s only complete surviving collection is the madrigals Op. 5 from 1627.

Pasquale’s work, stylistically close to the composers of the Roman school of the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, shows a gradual departure from the dominance of polyphony and contrapuntal stile antico towards stile concertato and technical solutions typical of seconda pratica. Already in Op. 1 (only the basso continuo has survived), Pasquali marked the last six madrigals “concertad nel clavicembalo”; in Sacrae cantiones, the organ part still displays many features of basso seguente. Pasquali used modern types of instrumentation (1–5 voices and basso continuo), but his collections lack instrumental parts.

Literature: J. Whenham Duet and Dialogue in the Age of Monteverdi, vol. 1, Ann Arbor 1982; A. de Angelis La cappella musicale di Viterbo nel secolo XVII, “Rivista Italiana di Musicologia” XIX, 1984; G. Ferraro La diaspora dei musicisti calabresi del Cinque e Seicento in: Fausto Torrefranca: L’uomo, il suo tempo, la sua opera, ed. G. Ferraro, A. Pugliese, Vibo Valentia 1993; V. Sargeni Musica e musicisti nella Cattedrale di Todi dopo il Concilio di Trento (secoli XVI–XVII), “Bollettino della Deputazione di storia patria per l’Umbria” C/2, 2003; G. Davoli Francesco Pasquali, “Nobile Cossentino”, e il madrigale tra Cinque e Seicento, “Calabria sconosciuta” CXIV, 2007.