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Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger
1580 - 1651
composed during the Baroque period
Biography
Johann Hieronymous Kapsberger was a famous lute player and also a composer of the Baroque era's first blush in Italy. Although his work was uneven, its better examples have considerable interest to today's listeners.

Despite his name, he was an Italian composer. He was born to an Austrian military man, Colonel Wilhelm Kapsberger, who lived in Venice. During his career, the composer often Italianized his Christian names to Giovanni Girolamo Kapsberger.

He quickly became famous as a virtuoso lutenist, which gave him entry to the leading clerical and aristocratic families, where he was treated as an equal as a "German nobleman." His skill and fame as a player also prompted his circulation in artistic and literary circles and his success as a composer flowed from the networking that resulted from this. He was a member of some of the "Academies" (more or less regular discussion and performance groups) that were important in artistic life of the time. These included the Accademia degli Umoristi and the Accademia degl'Imperfetti.

He had close contacts with the orders of St. Stephen and St. John and his publishers were members of these groups. In like manner, he was a friend of the poets Francesco Porta, Giulio Rospigliosi, and Giovanni Ciampoli, as well as painters and scholars.