Maurizio Cazzati (1616-1678)
- Messa per li defonti A Cinque Voci ... Op.31 (1663)
Performers: Maria Cristina Kiеhr (soprano); Dominique Vissе
(countertenor); Bruno Botеrf (tenor);
François Fauchе (bass); Marc
Busnеl (bass); Ensemble La Fenice; Jean Tսbéry (conductor)
Further info: Maurizio Cazzati - Sonates, Antiennes & Requiem
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Italian composer and organist. Nothing is known about his early years.
He may have been appointed to his first musical position at the age of
17, at San Pietro, Guastalla, serving Ferrante III, Duke of Guastalla.
After his ordination to the priesthood he became maestro di cappella and
organist of San Andrea, Mantua, in 1641. In 1648 he was appointed the
same post at the Accademia della Morte in Ferrara and at the church of
Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo in 1653. He returned to his old job in
Ferrara in April 1657 and then was elected to the post where he would
make his reputation, maestro di cappella at San Petronio, Bologna, in
late 1657. He instituted a regular choir of 35 singers and a group of
well-paid instrumentalists for the liturgy at San Petronio, but despite
the audible improvements he made and the reputation he built, his tenure
there was marked by politically motivated controversies over the syntax
in his sacred compositions. The vestry supported him, but he was
finally forced out in June 1671. He went to Mantua to serve the Gonzaga
family as maestro di cappella di camera and the cathedral as maestro di
cappella in a post he held the rest of his life. As a composer, he
reformed the 'cappella musicale' at the church of San Petronio in
Bologna and established its reputation as a center of excellent music in
general and as the origin of the sonata for trumpet and strings in
particular with his Opus 35 (1665). He published 10 volumes of
instrumental music, including the first violin sonatas published by a
San Petronio composer, his Opus 55 (1670). There are also 10 volumes of
secular vocal music, 4 lost operas, 11 lost oratorios, and 46 volumes of
sacred music.
