Vittorio Negri was born in Milan, Italy, in 1923. He first studied composition and conducting at the Milan Conservatory of Music, then at Siena under Antonio Guarnieri. In 1952, after studying under Bernhard Paumgartner at Salzburg, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Mozarteum there. Maestro Negri is a musicologist and a founding member of the Societa Italiana di Musicologia; he is also editor-in-chief of the Monumenta Italicae Musicae and has edited numerous works by 17th- and 18th-century Italian composers. He occupied the chair of Chamber Music at the Conservatory of Music of Perugia for two years and, since 1955, has been artistic director of the recordings of the famous Italian chamber ensemble I Musici. Maestro Negri’s musical activities have taken him all over Europe, where he has conducted and recorded with many of the major choirs and orchestras.