Life
He was born in Bologna, then part of the Papal States, and began studying music early, learning harpsichord and violin there; later he studied counterpoint. By the age of 17 he had already written a mass, a motet, and a setting of the Magnificat; and in 1678 he wrote his first opera and oratorio. During a stay in Parma, where he studied with Giuseppe Corso detto Celano, he formed his sacred music style; most of his psalm settings of the 1680s and 1690s show the influence of Corso. Later he went to Venice, most likely for a production of one of his operas.
In 1690 he was appointed to the post of Maestro di Cappella at S Pietro, replacing his uncle Lorenzo Perti. In 1696 he became Maestro di Cappella in another Bolognese church, S. Petronio, after the death of Giovanni Paolo Colonna the year before. He remained in charge for exactly sixty years, until his death at age 95.
Perti was a prolific composer of operas and sacred music, and was recognized as a distinguished musician not only by other composers, but by aristocrats and emperors, including Ferdinando de' Medici (one of the last of the Medici) and Emperors Leopold I and Charles VI.
Read more about this topic: Giacomo Antonio Perti
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“O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)