A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Casini, Giovanni
CASINI, Giovanni Maria, was a Florentine priest, and born towards the close of the 17th century. Fétis gives 1675 as the date of his birth, but it is not ascertained. He came to Rome early in life, but not before he had learnt the elements of counterpoint in his native town. At Rome he was successively the pupil of Matteo Simonelli and Bernardo Pasquini, under the last-named of whom he perfected himself as an organ player. The only post which he is known to have held was that of organist in the cathedral of Florence. He was simply a perverse man of talent who elected to join the ranks, and to add one or two more to the absurdities, of those musical reactionists who tried to stop the progress of the art in the 17th century. He followed in the wake of Doni Vicentino and Colonna in endeavouring to revive the three old Greek 'genera' of progression, viz. the diatonic, the chromatic, and the enharmonic. Fétis, indeed, says that, as several enthusiastic pedants of his class had done before him, he constructed a clavecin in which the notes represented by the black keys were subdivided, so as to obtain an exact equalisation of the semitones. Baini does not carry him this length, but only states him to have adopted the views of those who thus wasted their labour and ingenuity. In his account of Casini the last-named biographer tells us that the most celebrated of these instruments was one which he purchased himself from motives of patriotism to prevent such a curiosity being taken out of Italy. It was a cembalo, which had been constructed in 1606 at the expense of Camillo Gonzaga, Count of Novellara. It had four octaves, each divided into 31 notes, and as the highest of the treble was in octaves to the lowest of the bass, it had 125 keys in all, black and white. He bought with it a four-stringed instrument, noted to correspond with it, so that the two could easily be tuned in unison.
Casini's published works consist of—a volume of motets for 4 voices in the 'stile osservato,' intituled 'Johannis Mariae, Casini Majoris Ecclesiae Florentiae modulatoris, et sacerdotio proediti, Moduli quatuor vocibus: opus primum. Romae, apud Mascardum, 1706.' 'Responsori per la Settimana Santa, a 4 voci, op. 2, Florence, C. Bindi, 1706.' 'Motetti a 4 voci a Cappella, ibid. 1714.' 'Fantasies and Fugues for the Organ, Florence, 1714.' A motet of his is given by Proske in 'Musica Divina,' ii. No. 58.