Vincenzo Legrenzo Ciampi


Vincenzo Legrenzo Ciampi was an Italian composer. He is best known today for a work that cannot be certainly ascribed to his pen, the song "Tre giorni son che Nina in letto senesta", formerly called Pergolesi's "Nina".

Education and early career in Italy

Ciampi studied at the Naples Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini with Francesco Durante and Leonardo Leo. His first known success was the comic opera Da un disordine nasce un ordine, performed at the Teatro dei Fiorentini in Naples in 1737, when he was only eighteen. Five more of his comic operas were produced in Naples up to 1745, and he also received commissions for operas to be presented in Rome and other Italian cities. In 1746 he was engaged as a harpsichordist at the opera house in Palermo, and his opera seria Ataserse was performed there in 1747. That same year he was engaged at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice as an assistant to the maestro di coro G. B. Runcher, whom he had succeeded by 1748.

London

Ciampi was one the first music directors of the Ospedale to be given extended leave, and by the autumn of 1748 he was in London. His replacement at the Ospedale was Gioacchino Cocchi. In London Ciampi was the composer and director of music for a company of Italian singers under G. F. Crosa, who presented the first season of Italian comic opera at the King's Theatre, London. The company's repertory consisted of works already presented in Venice, among which was Gli tre cicisbei ridicoli in which appeared the popular song "Tre giorni son che Nina", often attributed to Pergolesi. This caused Barclay Squire and others to suggest the song was actually composed by Ciampi, however, according to Frank Walker, "this is extremely doubtful". Ciampi continued to appear in London until 1756.