Tomaso Antonio Vitali

Bio

Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663–1745) was an Italian Baroque composer and violinist born in Bologna. He was the son of the celebrated cellist and composer Giovanni Battista Vitali and trained under the Bolognese school of violin playing. Vitali is chiefly remembered for the Chaconne in G minor, a work long attributed to him but now believed by many scholars to be a later pastiche. Beyond this single piece, few of his compositions survive, and his documented career remains sparsely recorded. He spent his professional life in Modena, serving at the Este court, where he continued the family tradition of instrumental music that flourished in seventeenth-century Italy.