How it was possible, without today's means of communication, for the reputation of a musician, who was also in the service of a single place of education and devotion, to spread throughout Europe is something that modern man will find difficult to comprehend. The fact is, however, that the Roman composer and bandmaster Giacomo Carissimi received visitors from all over the world around the middle of the 17th century because of his incomparable ability to express every emotion and every word in tones and harmonies.

Marco Marazzoli was a composer, harpist and singer and as such moved in the highest circles of the clergy, which can certainly be explained not only by his own priestly status, but above all by the unusual quality of his creations. Born in Parma around 1602 and died in Rome in 1662, he was successful both in the large forms and in the field of chamber music cantatas. Towards the end of his life, he created a series of experimental vocal works for six voices and a small instrumental ensemble, which even satisfied the demands of the Vicar of Christ on earth: after all, the composer and his poets celebrated the Pope in these miniature dramas as a man of peace, through whose mediation the Franco-Spanish War had come to an end in 1659. This recognition can still be heard today.

Early opera underwent a strange development in the 17th century: under pressure from the paying public, comic elements increasingly overshadowed the fates of the great heroic figures it was supposed to be about. At some point, the brakes were applied and opera seria emerged, in which only noble characters acted.