Biography
A composer of notable range, Trabaci created motets, madrigals, psalms, passions, masses, and keyboard ricercares. His keyboard output anticipated Frescobaldi through its modulations, chromaticism, and striking rhythms, situating those pieces among the earliest Baroque keyboard examples. In his motets Trabaci favored unusual eight-part scoring split between two choirs. Roughly one hundred sixty keyboard works, sixty secular vocal settings, and one hundred sixty sacred vocal pieces—many honoring the Virgin Mary—make up his catalog. He pursued his entire career in Naples, singing as tenor at the church of the Annunciation, serving as organist to Spanish officials there, and eventually becoming choir master.