Pacini, Giovanni (1796–1867)

Italian composer. He studied first under his father, a famous tenor, and later at Bologna and Venice. At the age of 17 he produced his first opera at Venice. He became maestro di cappella to Napoleon's widow, the Empress Marie Louise, and in 1834 settled at Viareggio, where he opened a music school, later transferred to Lucca. For this he wrote some theoretical treatises.

Works Opera Annetta e Lucindo (1813), La sacerdotessa d'Irminsul (1820), La schiava in Bagdad (1820), La Gioventù di Enrico V (after Shakespeare's Henry IV, 1820), L'ultimo giorno di Pompei (not based on Bulwer-Lytton, 1825), Gli Arabi nelle Gallie (1827), Saffo (1840), Medea (1843), Lorenzino de' Medici (1845), La regina di Cipro, Il saltimbanco, Ivanhoe (after Scott, 1832) and over 60 others.

Other incidental music for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex; Masses, oratorios, cantata for Dante anniversary and others; six string quartets (c. 1860).