Alfieri, Pietro
Alfieri, Pietro
Alfieri, Pietro, Italian music scholar and composer; b. Rome, June 29, 1801; d. there, June 12, 1863. He became a priest and taught Gregorian chant at the Collegio Inglese in Rome. Alfieri was an authority on Gregorian chant, and was the author of the important books Saggio storico pratico del canto gregoriano o romano per istruzione degli ecclesiastici (Rome, 1835), Accompagnamento coli’organo de’ toni ecclesiatici (Rome, 1840), and Précis historique et critique sur la restauration des livres du chant grégorien (Rennes 1856; rev. Italian tr., 1857). He also ed. a collection of the music of Palestrina in his Raccolta di musica sacra (7 vols., Rome, 1841–46), and completed an edition of the Roman Gradual, Antiphonal, and Hymnal. Alfieri died insane.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire