Sciannameo (Carnegie Mellon U., Pittsburgh) offers the first full biography of a little known composer, the son of celebrated Italian opera composer Tommaso Trajetta (1727-79). He was born in
Venice and sent to study music in Naples where he fell in with Masons and Republicans, joined the Patriot Army, and wrote hymns and songs for it. He was captured and imprisoned by royalist
forces, but escaped to the US in 1800, where he composed, taught, and helped found music schools for the half century remaining in his life. The second two-thirds of the volume presents scores
of his major works, along with a facsimile of the 1873 third edition of his Introduction to the Art and Science of Music. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
