Giovanni Battista Quaglia

Giovanni Battista Quaglia (Bergamo, 1625 – Brescia, June 1700) was an Italian composer and organist whose career unfolded almost entirely in his native Bergamo and in neighbouring Brescia. A pupil of Francesco Turini, he held a prominent place for decades in the musical life of the cathedral and of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, which situates him within the religious music milieu of the Lombard Baroque.

From 1649 he served as organist at Santa Maria Maggiore. Following the death of Ottavio Mazza, he inherited the post of vice-maestro di cappella in 1674, and in 1677 he was appointed maestro di cappella. In 1690, after more than forty years in the service of that church, he requested leave to take up the post of maestro di cappella at Brescia Cathedral, with the aim of being close to his three daughters, who were nuns in that city. His son, Giovanni Francesco, partly followed in his footsteps: he was organist at Santa Maria Maggiore in 1695 and vice-maestro in 1712, although in 1717 he lost the position of maestro to Giacomo Gozzini.

According to some accounts, he was a highly competent teacher, performer and composer, although much of his output has been lost. Of his printed works, only two collections of motets for solo voice and an oratorio, La vittoria di David contro Golia, composed for performance in Bergamo Cathedral, survive. Further motets appear in anthologies by Federico Vigoni, C. M. Fagnani and Marino Silvani. In the dedication of his Motetti sacri of 1668, he refers to that collection as the "first creation of Eunomius's Cicada", a learned metaphor. His legacy is thus associated with the practice of the solo motet and the oratorio in northern Italy during the second half of the seventeenth century.