A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Agostini, Paolo
AGOSTINI, Paolo, an Italian composer, who stands out in relief from too many of his contemporary countrymen. He was born at Vallerano in 1593, and was a pupil, at Rome, of Bernardino Nanini, whose daughter he married. After being organist of S. Maria in Trastevere, and Maestro di Cappello at S. Lorenzo in Damaso, he succeeded Ugolini as Maestro at the Vatican Chapel, in 1629. Unhappily for his art, he died a few months after his preferment, in the 36th year of his age.
Pitoni, who would seem to be nothing if not inaccurate, has a story to the effect that Agostini owed his appointment at the Vatican to an unanswered challenge to a musical encounter, which he sent to Ugolini, who had been his fellow-pupil under Nanini; the Chapter conceived that, if their Maestro shunned a professional duello with Agostini, he ought to give up his place to him. But this is hardly probable, and Baini, with unnecessary perseverance, exposes its improbability. A more pleasant anecdote is that Urban VIII happened to enter the Basilica at the moment when a work of Agostini's, for forty-eight voices, after the fashion then in vogue, was being performed by the choir. The Pope stopped to hear it out; and, at its conclusion, rose and bowed pointedly to its composer, to mark his sense of its beauty.
The extant published works of Agostini consist of two volumes of Psalms for four and eight voices (printed by Soldi, Rome, 1619); two volumes of Magnificats for one, two, and three voices (Ibid., 1620); and five volumes of Masses for eight and twelve voices, published (Robletti, Rome) in 1624, 1625, 1626, 1627, and 1628 respectively. He was one of the first to employ large numbers of voices in several choirs. Ingenuity and elegance are his prevailing characteristics; but that he could and did rise beyond these, is proved by an 'Agnus Dei' for eight voices in canon, which was published by P. Martini in his 'Saggio di Contrappunto Fugato,' and which is allowed to be a masterpiece. The fame, however, of Agostini rests upon his unpublished pieces, which form the great bulk of his productions. They are preserved partly in the Corsini Library, and partly in the Collection of the Vatican.[1] A motett by Agostini is given in Proske's 'Musica Divina' (Liber Motettorum, No. lxx.)- ↑ Paolo Agostini must not be confounded with the earlier and inferior Ludovico Agostini of Ferrara, who, having lived for fifty-six years, and having been Maestro at the Cathedral of his native town, died in 1590, and left certain masses, madrigals, and motetti behind him: nor with Pietro Simoni Agostini, a Roman, who lived during the latter half of the 17th century, and was the author of some published cantatas, and of 'Il Ratto delle Sabine,' an opera performed in Venice in 1680.