Francesco Rasi

Francesco Rasi (Arezzo, 14 May 1574 – Mantua, 30 November 1621) was an Italian composer, tenor, chitarrone player and poet whose career unfolded between the courts of the Medici and the Gonzaga, and who played a prominent role in the beginnings of monody in Italy. He came from a distinguished Arezzo family, and his life, marked by travel and legal episodes, illustrates well the mobility of court musicians of his time.

His training began at the University of Pisa, where he enrolled in 1592, and in 1594 he was a pupil of Giulio Caccini. In the early 1590s he performed in Rome under the patronage of the Grand Duke Ferdinando I of Tuscany; Emilio de' Cavalieri praised his success as a singer and chitarrone player in a letter. After passing through Ferrara, Venice and Naples, he made a journey to Poland and returned to Italy around 1597. At the end of 1598 he accepted an offer from the Duke of Mantua, in whose service he most probably remained for the rest of his life.

In 1600 he sang in Florence at the premieres of Peri's Euridice, where he played Aminta, and of Caccini's Il rapimento di Cefalo. In Mantua, in 1607, he almost certainly created the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo, although this attribution rests on a disputed documentary interpretation. That same year he was much praised in a coastal town near Genoa, and in 1608 he took part in the Mantuan premieres of Gagliano's Dafne, as Apollo, and of Monteverdi's Arianna. Around 1610 a death sentence handed down in Tuscany, for a murder and an attempted homicide within his family, forced him to seek refuge under the protection of the Gonzaga, who moved him to Turin; the sentence was annulled in 1620, on condition that he never returned to Arezzo. In 1612 he was admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona and travelled to Prague to pay homage to Emperor Matthias. On his return, he dedicated to the Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg a manuscript of sacred and secular songs, which is preserved in Berlin.

His legacy centres on his collections of monodies, Vaghezze di musica (1608) and Madrigali (1610), which together contain 42 pieces, almost all for tenor. His style, close to Caccini's, combines lyrical vocal lines with occasional ornamentation in cadences, and in the strophic songs writing in sequences is abundant. Both collections survive, and his 1612 manuscript also documents Latin motets and duets, while the Dialoghi rappresentativi (1620) show an early experimentation with dramatic dialogue. Much of his output has been lost, such as the music of his opera Cibele, ed Ati, of 1617, of which only the libretto survives. He died shortly after marrying in Pistoia, in 1621, and Chiabrera mourned his death in an undated poem.