Gasparo Visconti

(1683-1713)


Italian violinist and composer. Gasparo Giuseppe Visconti was born in 1683 in Cremona, the second son of the nobleman Giulio Cesare Visconti Announced and Ferrari. The Visconti were among the most active families as patrons of their city in the arts, to the point of financing the new decoration and the remarkable family chapel in the Church of S.Omobono. Within this there are numerous tombstones in memory of some donations by Gasparo also the same in favor of the "Consorzio di S. Omobono", aimed at some improvements in the sacred building. Their sumptuous residence, which still exists, part of the complex of the College of the Canossian Sisters, was in fact located in the Parish of St. Omobono, opposite the church.

The young Gasparo was, according to some historians, a student of Arcangelo Corelli. He resided in London between 1702 and 1705 where he was appreciated as a young violin virtuoso using the pseudonym Gasparino or Gasparini. In 1703 he published in Amsterdam his seven "Sonate a Violino solo, è Violone, ò Cembalo, Opera Prima", which is his greatest work and his most important legacy. This collection was, apparently, successful since it wase immediately reprinted in the same year in London, under the title "Gasparini's solos for a violin and bass composed by Seign.r Gaspare Visconti"

Leaving London in 1705, prompted by his father he began the journey back to his native Cremona. The fact that some German libraries retain copies or manuscripts of some of his compositions, suggests the possibility of a brief stay in Germany.

Gasparo Visconti was defintively living in Cremona in 1707. In illumination of the se years we have the testimony of the Cremonese historian Giorgio Sommi Picenardi, who referred to "he Visconti di Cremona, a skilled violinist, who, (...) was in the beginning of the eighteenth century in Venice in an academy of which the King of Poland was patron." Also the historian Chilesotti in his work Ò I nostri maestri del passatoÓ writing of the famous Tartini said ""(...) a little later (Tartini), was invited to travel to Venice to take part in an academy of which the King of Poland was patron. There were two famous professors, the Visconti of Cremona and Veracini of Florence, skilled violin players."

The only certain date in later years is that of his death in Cremona in 1731.





A Partial Gasparo Visconti Discography |  Instrumental Works from the end of the 18th Century | The Research Periods | Home

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