The Rocklopedia Fakebandica now has a podcast.
Listen now!
Guglielmo Baldini
Non-existent Italian composer from the first printing of the 1980 New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. The entry was removed from later printings of the 1980 edition and subsequent editions.
Baldini, Guglielmo (b Ferrara, c1540; d in or after 1589). Italian composer. He may have been a relation of Vittorio Baldini, printer to the court of Ferrara from 1575. The pieces in his Primo libro de' madrigali a 5-6 voci (Venice, 2/1574), dedicated to the papal nuncio G.A. Facchinetti (Later Pope Innocent IX), closely resemble thoe in Philippe de Monte's first book of six-part madrigals (1569) in their extensive use of homophonic writing and inclusion of traits typical of the villanella; the work is eclectic in its choice of texts (Ariosto, Sannazaro, Luigi Tansillo) and includes three sacred madrigals. A letter from Facchinetti to the Bishop of Freiburg, dated 1 March 1589, mentions a second book of (spiritual) madrigals, which does not survive.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
L.L. Ubaldi Gritti: 'L'umanesimo italiano nella diocesi di Friburgo all' epoca del Tridentino', Archiv für Frieburger Diözesangeschichte, lxxiv (1963), 471 Richard Di Gennaro
His entry was taken from German musicologist Hugo Riemann's (1849-1919) invention of the composer years earlier. The 1959 edition of the Riemann Musik-Lexicon has this entry:
Baldini, Guglielmo, um 1540 zu Ferrara; italienischer Komponist, von dem bekannt ist: J7 primo libro de 9 Madrigali a cinque e sei (Venedig 2 1574). Die dem damaligen Nuntius G. A. Facchinetti (spater Papst Innozenz IX.) gewidmeten Madrigale sind mit homophonen Partien durchsetzt und zeigen villaneske Ziige. Ob verwandtschaftliche Beziehungen zwischen dem Autor und dem ferraresischen Hofdrucker Vittorio B. bestehen, ist ungewiß.
