CELONI, Anna Maria Pellegrini

Anna Maria Pellegrini Celoni was an Italian composer, opera singer, pianist and influential teacher of singing, born in Rome. Her principal publication, Grammatica, o siano regole di ben cantare (1810), combines vocal instruction with notated exercises dealing with tone production, agility, ornamentation and expressive singing. It was reissued in 1817 and translated into German, becoming an important early nineteenth-century contribution to bel canto pedagogy and one of the earliest known Italian singing methods written by a woman. At least one independent composition has been identified: a setting in F major of Metastasio’s La partenza, beginning “Ecco quel fiero istante,” preserved in manuscript. No extensive catalogue of her compositions has yet been located.