Giovan Gualberto Brunetti

Biography

Giovan Gualberto Brunetti (Pistoia, 24 April 1706 – Pisa, 20 May 1787) was an Italian composer.

Giovan Gualberto Brunetti studied violin with Atto Gherardeschi in Pistoia, and beginning in 1723 was the student of Giovan Carlo Maria Clari in Pisa. In 1728, Brunetti left in order to study violin at the Pietà dei Turchini Conservatory in Naples, where he was instead forced to study voice performance as a tenor. In 1733, he composed a comic opera, but his operatic career did not take off. Brunetti earned a living as a singer in Neapolitan churches until he was hired as the Chapel Master for the Duke of Monte Nero, who brought him to Sicily for 6 months, where he composed a serenata for the arrival of Charles of Bourbon in Messina (1735), as well as at least two comic operas on Pietro Trinchera's librettos. For six more months, he taught at the Filipino Oratorio of Genoa, after which he was hired at the Turchini Conservatory as assistant director from 1745 until 1754. At this time, he accepted to succeed Clari, as Chapel Master of the Duomo of Pisa. He stayed in Pisa for almost thirty years and became a priest after the death of his wife, Giuseppina, in 1763. He recovered the musical archive after the Arno flooded and also worked for the Cavalieri of Santo Stefano; he resume his career in theater, using librettos by Gennaro Antonio Federico and Pietro Metastasio, achieving success in Lucca as well. In 1756, he became a member of the Philharmonic Academy in Bologna. He died in 1787.

Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.