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Pietro Raimondi (December 20, 1786 – October
30, 1853) was an Italy|Italian composer,
transitional between the Classical music
era|Classical and Romantic music|Romantic eras. 
While he was famous at the time as a composer of
operas and sacred music, he was also as an
innovator in counterpoint|contrapuntal technique
as well as in creation of gigantic musical
simultaneities.

Raimondi was born in Rome, and received his early
education in Naples.  He spent part of his early
career in Genoa, and then in Sicily, where he had
operas performed in Catania and Messina,
Italy|Messina; however he moved back to Naples in
1820, and began a career as an opera composer
there.  While he was best known as an opera
composer during this time, he was obsessed with
counterpoint, and spent his spare time writing
fugues:  fugues for many voices, as well as
simultaneous fugues in different keys and modes
for multiple groups of different instruments.  He
considered this work to be experimental, and did
not incorporate his experimentation, early in his
career, into his operas. 

Few of Raimondi's operas were successful, and as
soon as he realized he was being eclipsed by
Gioacchino Rossini|Rossini, and later by Vincenzo
Bellini|Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti,
he changed his compositional direction from
production of operas to sacred music; in that
domain he had a better opportunity to indulge his
love of counterpoint.  He published a counterpount
treatise in 1836, around the same time as the
first of his experimental compositions for
multiple choruses and orchestras:  from this year
forward he devoted most of his energies to such
creations.  However he had not forgotten his
previous career as an operatic composer, and made
a few last attempts to achieve a success on the
operatic stage.

One of the most spectacular of his experiments in
musical simultaneity was his triple oratorio,
Putifar-Giuseppe-Giacobbe (1848).  This work was a
set of three independent oratorios designed to be
performed first consecutively, and then
simultaneously, one of the only such experiments
before the music of Charles Ives in the 20th
century.  Unlike the music of Ives, however,
Raimondi's musical language was conservative, even
anachronistic, using only the tonal language of
the 18th century.  The parts of the oratorios were
designed to fit together tightly, all obeying the
standard rules of counterpoint.  The triple
oratorio was first performed in Rome in 1852, in a
concert lasting six hours, and requiring 430
performers:  according to the contemporary
account, Raimondi was so overcome with the
colossal sound of the three oratorios together at
the end that he fainted, and the concert caused
the sensation he had desired for so long.  As a
result of this success he was honored by the Pope,
receiving from him the position of maestro di
cappella at St. Peter's Basilica|St. Peter's, a
level of acknowledgement he had never achieved in
the operatic realm.

Raimondi followed the triple oratorio with the
composition of a double opera, one serious and one
tragic, which like the triple oratorio was
designed to be performed either consecutively or
simultaneously.  This work (Adelasia/I quattro
rustici) was left incomplete at his death in 1856;
however, much of the orchestration, counterpoint,
and many of the scene changes had been worked out.
 As conceived, each opera would have served as a
commentary on the other.  This double opera has
never been completed or staged, and along with
Raimondi's other late music is an example of an
experimental trend in the middle 19th century
which was never followed up by anyone else.

In his actual musical language, Raimondi was
conservative, and his simultaneities work by
following traditional rules of counterpoint, as
well as by staying in a limited tonal universe.

==References==

* Dennis Libby, "Pietro Raimondi," The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley
Sadie.  20 vol.  London, Macmillan Publishers
Ltd., 1980.  ISBN 1561591742
* Jesse Rosenberg: "Pietro Raimondi," Grove Music
Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed May 28, 2005),
http://www.grovemusic.com (subscription access)