Orazio Michi “dell’Arpa”
Orazio Michi was born in 1595 in Alife, at the time a small town in the Kingdom of Naples, today in the province of Caserta. There are no certain records of his studies, but it is likely that he trained in Neapolitan schools and with Neapolitan masters, given his talent with the double harp—an instrument that enjoyed excellent teaching traditions in those circles. As a young man, in 1613 he was already in the service of Cardinal Alessandro Damasceni Peretti Montalto in Rome, an environment regarded as highly significant from a cultural point of view at the time. He achieved success both as a virtuoso harpist and as a composer of secular and sacred cantatas. After Cardinal Montalto’s death, for a period Michi was active in numerous sacred and secular events, and later documents show that he held a permanent post in the chapel of Cardinal Maurizio of Savoy. Orazio Michi died in 1641 at the age of just 46, leaving a considerable bequest, particularly to the foundation of Santa Maria della Vallicella, where it is presumed he also took part in the charitable activities promoted by Saint Philip Neri.
Highlighting the work and figure of Orazio Michi is today a necessary act to rescue from dangerous oblivion a particularly interesting musician of the first half of the seventeenth century. In fact, this musician—virtuoso of a complex instrument such as the double harp, now fallen out of use—also distinguished himself as a composer of both sacred and secular arias, setting texts by authoritative authors and poets of his time. He was fully part of that highly significant movement linked to the development of Baroque monody in the Roman school. Orazio Michi served the most eminent Cardinal Montalto, considered an important patron in Rome, a man of great culture and sensitivity who surrounded himself with leading figures in art, literature, and music of the time. The musician from Alife, probably having reached Rome with the help of the Bishop of Venafro (the Cardinal’s brother, though this is not confirmed), not only distinguished himself in that milieu, gaining esteem and a remarkable position for a musician of the time, but also went beyond that condition, becoming an active composer and taking part fully in the great revolution in music and theater centered around the Oratory of Santa Maria in Vallicella in Rome.
Orazio Michi was one of the outstanding figures of his time. He was active in various contexts, demonstrating skill and sensitivity, and he contributed significantly to the spread of a new musical taste—the Roman School—of great interest, which influenced the birth of all the music that followed. From that aesthetic came new theatrical paths such as the Oratorio, but also precious insights into the vocal style of melodrama, and inspiration for a new concept of polyphony. From those cultural environments arose much of the finest music and theater of the period. Orazio Michi was part of all this: his figure deserves to be studied, but above all valued, so that proper recognition may be given to an artistic production far removed from any simplistic provincialism. He was a true protagonist: a virtuoso on his instrument and a distinguished composer. Through his art, he contributed to the birth and development of that aesthetic later called the Early Roman Baroque—a marvel of beauty, lofty language, and expressive synthesis of an era considered among the most fascinating and significant in the history of Western music.
(Biographical summary by Antonio Bellone)
YouTube channel dedicated to the compositions of Orazio Michi “dell’Arpa.”
Conference and historically informed concert held in Alife on January 3, 2025, at the Church of St. Catherine. Click here >>>
