Marco Giuseppe Peranda (Macerata, c. 1625 - 12 January 1675 in Dresden) was an Italian musician and composer active in Germany.
He was one of the most notable Italian musicians in Germany during the early Baroque alongside
Vincenzo Albrici,
Carlo Pallavicino and
Giovanni Andrea Bontempi in Dresden. These four Italian Kapellmeisters were well rewarded - they earned yearly salaries of 1,200 Reichstalers while
Heinrich Schütz, at this point semi-retired, earned 800 Reichstalers a year. A contemporary, Agostino Rossi, records him as being a native of Macerata but his musical style shows an education in Rome. From 1651 Perenda was an alto singer in the chapel of
Johann Georg II of Saxony as he combined his own chapel choir with that of his father's. In 1661 Peranda became Vizekapellmeister and in 1663 Kapellmeister, as successor of Albrici. His opera Dafne (composed in collaboration) was performed to open the Opernhaus am Taschenberg in Dresden. In 1670 he made a journey to Italy, from which two masses and a motet remain in the Kroměříž residence. In 1672 he was promoted again, to Hofkapellmeister, possibly since
Christoph Bernhard had taken a better offer in Hamburg. In 1675 Peranda died, and since unlike some Italian musicians he had never converted to Lutheranism, was buried in Marienstern Abbey in Dresden.
