Giovanni Anerio Francesco

Background

Giovanni Francesco Anerio was born July 7, 1569, Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Career

He was a choirboy at Cappella Giulia in St. Peter's under Palestrina from 1575 to 1579. He clearly decided to become a priest from an early age and became associated with the Oratory of Filippo Neri around 1583. In 1595 he was employed as an organist at S Marcello and likely became maestro di cappella at the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, after Francesco Soriano, between 1600 or 1601 and 1603. In 1609 he held a similar post at Verona Cathedral, his first appointment outside of Rome; he stayed there until 1610 when he went back to Rome; and he stayed there, aside for a few travels, until 1624, in a variety of roles (becoming a priest at last in 1616). In 1624 he took the position of choirmaster to King Sigismund III of Poland in Warsaw. Poland had several active musical centers in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, including Kraków and Warsaw, and often employed Italians and Germans.

Achievements

• Anerio was a prolific composer, and he wrote motets, litanies, antiphons, "sacred concertos," responsories, psalms, madrigals, much miscellaneous sacred and secular music, as well as a handful of instrumental pieces. Most were published in Rome; no works have yet been identified definitively from the period he worked in Poland.