Benedetto Vinaccesi

Benedetto Vinaccesi (Brescia, c. 1666 – Venice, 25 December 1719) was an Italian composer who spent almost his entire career between Brescia and Venice, where he attained a stable position as organist and maestro di cappella.

He came from a family of merchants and officials established in Brescia since the sixteenth century. His cousin Fortunato Vinaccesi, a scholar of almost universal interests, frequented a salon in which the young Benedetto may have awakened his intellectual curiosity. He learned the organ, and possibly other instruments, from Pietro Pelli, a former capo musico of Brescia Cathedral.

His first published work was secular music: in 1687 his Op. 1, a collection of three-part chamber sonatas, appeared in Venice, presenting him as maestro di cappella to Ferdinando Gonzaga, sovereign of Castiglione delle Stiviere. This post was probably honorary, without residence, and it is unlikely to have continued beyond 1691, the year a local revolt expelled Ferdinando. In 1688 he dedicated to Prince Ferdinando of Tuscany a volume of cantatas numbered as Op. 3, alluding to the prince becoming Ferdinando III. Around 1692 he published church sonatas (Op. 2) and another set of chamber sonatas (Op. 4). It is not known who granted him the title of cavaliere that he held before that date.

In the following years he devoted himself to sacred music. His oratorios Gioseffo che interpreta i sogni and Susanna were performed at the court of Modena. In 1698 he was appointed maestro di coro of the Ospedaletto, one of Venice's four ospedali grandi, with a salary of 200 ducats a year, a post he held until 1715. By his own estimate, he composed more than 450 works there. His brief foray into opera, around 1700, proved unrewarding and he soon abandoned it. In 1704 he won by competitive examination the post of first organist of the second organ at St Mark's, which he held until his death. Among his pupils were Friederich Georg Dieterich and Nicolò Domenico Turri.

His surviving output is small but distinctive for its originality. The chamber sonatas of Op. 1 are among the earliest examples of chamber sonatas in several movements and contain unusual dances, such as the taiheg, the pira and the arcicorrente. In his cantatas and dramatic music, he makes effective use of brief passages of coloratura. His eight-part vespers psalms show command of the polychoral style, although the core of his output is the motets for two and three voices, which combine the da capo form with elaborate polyphonic treatment. His pastoral opera Chi è causa del suo mal pianga sé stesso, performed in Rome at the court of Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, shows a dramatic talent that critics associate with French taste.