(b Bassano del Grappa, 26 March 1634; d Vicenza, 2 July 1710). Italian composer. He was already a singer and priest at Vicenza Cathedral when on 24 August 1650 he received a canonry there. On 14 December 1656 he defeated Carlo Grossi to become maestro di cappella, and he held this post for the rest of his life. Between 1657 and 1696 he was often responsible for the music performed on significant feast days at the most important churches in Vicenza; indeed, from 1681 to 1696 (when it was discontinued), Freschi held the post of ‘maestro di cappella for the music that the magnificent city is obligated to perform’. He was otherwise mainly active as an opera composer, particularly at Venice but also for the private theatre of Marco Contarini at Piazzola sul Brenta, near Padua. The score of Tullia superba (1678) has relatively well-thought-out melodic writing and makes much use of dotted and anapaestic rhythms; some of the later operas (e.g. L'incoronatione di Dario) contain large and demanding da capo arias. Freschi’s church music includes simple four-part settings of hymns, which were still being performed at Vicenza in the 19th century. He was one of the teachers of G.A. Ricieri, who taught G.B. Martini.
WORKS
operas
performed in Venice, Teatro S Angelo, unless otherwise stated
Iphide greca (N. Minato), ai Saloni, 1671, with G.D. Partenio and G. Sartorio, only Act 2 by Freschi, I-Vnm (2 copies)
Helena rapita da Paride (A. Aureli), 1677, MOe, Vnm, Vqs (arias)
Il miracolo di S Antonio di Padua (orat), also attrib. ‘Sig. Pol.’ [? = C.F. Pollarolo], MOe
5 hymns, 4vv, VIs
2 arias, probably from an op, Nc
BIBLIOGRAPHY
EitnerQ
GaspariC
GerberNL
Grove5 (A. Loewenberg)
LaBordeE
RicordiE
WaltherML
C.Ivanovich: Minerva al tavolino (Venice, 1681, 2/1688)
F.M.Piccioli: L'orologio del piacere (Piazzola sul Brenta, 1685)
G.Gasparelli: I musicisti vicentini (Vicenza, 1880)
L.Busi: Il Padre G.B. Martini (Bologna, 1891/R), 35
G.Mantese: Storia musicale vicentina (Vicenza, 1956)
M.Saccardo: Arte organaria, organisti e attività musicale a S Corona (Vicenza, 1976)
L.Bianconi and T.Walker: ‘Production, Consumption and Political Function of Seventeenth-Century Italian Opera’, EMH, iv (1984), 209–96
V.Bolcato and A.Zanotelli: Il fondo musicale dell'Archivio capitolare del Duomo di Vicenza (Turin, 1986)
R.Walton: ‘Two Modena Aria Anthologies of the Late Seventeenth Century and some Related Manuscripts’, South African Journal of Musicology, viii–ix (1988–9), 79–86
R.Walton: ‘Late Seventeenth-Century Oratorio in Vicenza: a Case-Study in the Patronage of Sacred Music’, Potere, cultura e letterature italiane: Johannesburg 1995, 85–94