Collection: Pietro Alessandro Pavona

Pietro Alessandro Pavona (1728 - 1786)

Born in Palma on June 15, 1728, to Francesco di Pietro, a Veronese serving in the Venetian garrison, and Giovanna Casoti. Nothing is known of his youth and education; it is said that he was a pupil of Bartolomeo Cordans, but there is no documentary evidence to confirm this, other than a copy of a Cordans motet made by the young Pavona. At twenty, he received clerical tonsure in Udine and, in 1749, joined the chapter college of S. Maria Assunta in Cividale del Friuli.

In 1751, upon the death of the titular organist, Giuseppe Zanchetti, Pavona was unanimously elected to succeed him. His first dated autograph work dates back to that year. At the Cividale cathedral, he dedicated himself to teaching, selecting, composing, and directing music for the main liturgical festivities. He received commissions from the Confraternities of the Battuti and the Santissimo Crocifisso, from the secular Casa delle zitelle in Udine between 1778 and 1786; and invitations to direct musical performances, from the Basilica del Santo in Padua in 1761, to the Udine Cathedral for the solemn entry of the new archbishop G. G. Gradenigo in 1762, to Grado in 1772 together with the organist Luigi De Grassi, to Tolmezzo in 1773.

In 1777 he dedicated a collection of sacred songs for soprano and orchestra to the abbess of the monastery of S. Maria di Aquileia, Maria Redigonda dei signori di Maniago. For Palma, he wrote an introit for the beatification of Saint Lawrence of Brindisi in 1784. His musical practice was not limited to the duties imposed by his role but extended into the secular sphere. Indeed, on January 25, 1757, Patriarch Daniele Delfino threatened the Cividale mansionaries with suspension if they persisted in participating "as musicians" during Carnival in theatrical performances involving the city's nobility, of which, perhaps, traces remain in arias and symphonies of unknown origin.

On October 17, 1786, at the age of just fifty-eight, he died in Manzano at the Foscolini home. Most of his known works are preserved in autograph manuscripts in the place where he served for at least thirty-six years, namely at the parish of S. Maria Assunta in Cividale del Friuli, in the Capitular Musical Archive, in thirty-seven volumes, twenty-one envelopes and other scattered units in various collections, totaling 284 units, comprising individual pieces and anthologies.