Cerro, Luigi

Luigi Cerro (?before 1745-after 1815), a keyboard player and composer, was a prominent musical figure in Genoa in the late eighteenth century (Bongiovanni 1994, p. 619). He studied with Padre Martini in Bologna in 1760-2, compiling some Elementi del contrapunto, 116 Lezioni di contrapunto and composing several psalm settings that survive in an autograph compilation dating from that period (I-Bc, Ms. Mart. 2.26.3). He became a member of the Accademici Filarmonici in Bologna in 1779. Cerro was chapel master of several churches and oratories in Genoa, initially of the S. Dominico church after becoming a member of the Dominican order in 1777. He was also active as maestro al cembalo at the S. Agostino theatre. Temporarily relieved of his duties as a chapel master, in 1787 he spent a brief period in Madrid to act as maestro for a production, to mark the reopening of the ‘Los Caños del Peral’ theatre, of Giuseppe Sarti’s Medonte. Information on Cerro’s activity in the 1790s is patchy, though in 1792 he composed a new mass for the Collegiate Church of N. Signora delle Vigne (Bongiovanni 1994, p. 624). In later years he was chapel master at the S. Ambrogio church in Alassio (1803-?) and organist of the S. Michele church in Celle Ligure (from 1815).

The identification here of Cerro’s handwriting in P-Ln, F.C.R. 45//1 and F.C.R. 45//2 is made with the assistance of Davide Mingozzi (Università degli studi di Genova).  

Davide Mingozzi, ‘L'opera per tastiera di Luigi Cerro. Appunti per una storia del pianoforte a Genova’, Il Paganini, 5 (2019), pp. 35-49. 

Davide Mingozzi, ‘Impresari, costume e società a teatro nell'autunno della Serenissima Repubblica di Genova (1772-97)’, PhD thesis (Università di Bologna, 2020).

Carmela Bongiovanni, ‘Luigi Cerro. L'opera di un allievo di Padre Martini in terra ligure tra '700 e '800, in La musica ad Alassio dal XVI al XIX secolo’, in Storia e cultura, ed. G. Puerari, P. Brocero, M. Bizzocoli, C. Bongiovanni, M. Tarrini (Liguria, Savona, 1994), pp. 613-653.