CSinfonieolista a tre Ensemble Giardino di Delizie Ewa Anna Augustynowicz artistic director Lelio Colista 1629-1680 Lelio Colista (Rome 13.01.1629 – 13.10.1680) 10 Sinfonie a tre In his Musurgia Universalis, published in Rome in 1650, the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher described the young Lelio Colista as “The Orpheus of the city of 1. Sinfonia a tre in F W-K26** 9’05 6. Sinfonia a tre in B-flat W-K28** 6’20 Rome”, deeming certain of his symphonies for guitar, lute, theorbo and harp to be 2. Sinfonia a tre in A W-K22* 9’01 7. Sinfonia a tre in G W-K37* 9’36 exemplary models. Affectionately referred to as “beloved Lelio” by Antonio Maria 3. Sinfonia a tre in C W-K14** 4’39 8. Sinfonia a tre in C W-K10** 5’35 Abbatini in an autobiographical sonnet of 1667 addressed to Sebastiano Baldini, 4. Sinfonia a tre in E minor 9. Sinfonia a tre in F W-K25* 9’08 Colista was the youngest child of Margherita Riveri de Honorantis and Pietro Colista, W-K31* 7’47 10. Ballo a tre in G minor W-K41** 3’54 a jurist and Latin scholar employed at the Vatican Library. He began his musical 5. Sinfonia a tre in C W-K13* 9’25 education as a choirboy, and at the age of eight was already engaged as a dancer for performances staged in Palazzo Barberini of Pazzia di Orlando, a “ballet with action” (ballo co’ gesti) on a libretto by Giulio Rospigliosi (the future Pope Clement IX), with music by Virgilio Mazzocchi and Marco Marazzoli, the great harpist who played the famous Barberini Harp featured in Giovanni Lanfranco’s painting Allegoria Ensemble Giardino di Delizie della musica. So clearly from an early age Colista was launched among the baroque Ewa Anna Augustynowicz baroque violin, artistic director splendours of the Barberini court, which had also attracted musicians of the calibre Katarzyna Solecka baroque violin of Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, Stefano Landi, Luigi Rossi and Domenico Mazzocchi Valeria Brunelli baroque cello (brother of the Virgilio mentioned above). Fabrizio Carta archlute, baroque guitar Colista attended the Collegio Romano, where he made friends with Caspar Schott, Elisabetta Ferri harpsichord, organ another Jesuit, as well as Kircher, with whom Cardinal Fabio Chigi, the future Pope Alexander VII, was also to take lessons in counterpoint. Colista’s qualities as a virtuoso lutenist were soon recognized, and from 1652 there are records of him *Ewa Anna Augustynowicz 1st violin playing at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Abbatini was chapel master. **Katarzyna Solecka 1st violin Moreover, in the first of the two volumes of his Itinerarium Exstaticum (Rome, 1656), Kircher mentions an Accademia at which Colista played the lute, with the violin parts entrusted to Michelangelo Rossi, described post-mortem as “excellent in the art of music and especially in playing the violin”, and Salvatore Mazzella, the Neapolitan violinist who composed the collection of Balli published in Rome in 1689. When Fabio Chigi was elected Pope, Colista became the “Papal equerry” (1656), Recording: 4-7 November 2019, Saint Francis Church, Trevi, Italy Recording producer & sound engineer: Luca Ricci Editing: Luca Ricci Booklet: Pasquale Imbrenda Cover: A Bridge on the Blue (2019), by Romina Farris (b. 1971) Photo of Giardino di Delizie: Pasquale Imbrenda p & © 2020 Brilliant Classics Chapel Master at Santa Maria del Popolo (1657-spring 1667) and “keeper of the John Playford’s An Introduction to the Skill of Musick, published in London in 1694. Sisto chapel paintings” (1660-1680). From 1659 to 1661 Antonio Cesti was also in 1675 was a Holy Year, and Colista was engaged as “concertino” lutenist in practically Rome, and on 8 September 1660 he joined the city’s foremost virtuoso musicians to all the Oratorios, including Stradella’s San Giovanni Battista. Others taking part sing two motets, a Magnificat and Antiphon by Colista in the Basilica di Santa Maria were Bernardo Pasquini at the harpsichord, Carlo Ambrogio Lonati and Carlo del Popolo. The following year Lelio composed his first oratorio (since lost), in which Mannelli on the violin, and among the six violinists of the “concerto grosso”, a young he wrote the part of the King with Cesti in mind. Summoned back to Florence, in Bolognese musicians: Arcangelo Corelli. In August of that same year, Lelio entered the end Cesti was unable to take part in the performance that took place in February the Arciconfraternita delle Sacre Stimmate di San Francesco. He died in Rome on 13 1661 at the SS. Crocifisso di San Marcello, the oratory where Colista served as chapel October 1680, without having published any of his compositions. Buried in the little master in 1667. From 1657 he was “deputy chamberlain” to Cardinal Flavio Chigi, cemetery beside the Church of the Ss. Stimmate, his mortal remains have since been nephew of Pope Alexander VII, accompanying him with Bernardo Pasquini on a lost. Colista appointed Don Livio Odescalchi, nephew of Pope Innocent XI, as the delicate diplomatic mission to France in 1664. It was this experience that turned executor of his will. Colista into a musician of international fame. As Giuseppe Ottavio Pitoni was to The nine Sinfonie a tre in this world premiere recording, plus the “Ballo del sig. recall, “the Roman Lelio Colista, renowned player of the lute and guitar, composer of Colista”, come from the Giordano 15 manuscript scores kept at the Biblioteca beautiful symphonies, was taken by Legate Card. Chigi to France, where King Louis Nazionale in Turin. They date from the period of Alexander VII’s pontificate, and XIV heard him play and was highly impressed. On his return to Rome many wished we know from a note of 23 December 1664 that the Sinfonie were performed on to study with him...”. The most famous of these pupils was certainly Gaspar Sanz, Christmas Eve at Santa Maria del Popolo. They all feature a well-structured and, for who celebrated him in his Instrucción de música sobre la Guitarra Española of 1674: the most part, slow first movement that is richly expressive and melodious, along “Lelio Collista, Orfeo de estos tiempos”. with the strict counterpoint typical of the Roman school, where the fugue is almost In May 1667 Pope Alexander VII died, and Colista, who in February had presented always placed in the second-to-last movement. It is thus possible that they constituted his second and last oratorio (also lost), left Rome for Bologna. In a letter to Leopold a model that influenced composers such as Stradella, Mannelli, Lonati and Corelli I Habsburg of 9th October 1668, Cesti mentioned that he had “also met in Bologna in their ideas for trio sonatas. There may also have been some direct influence on Lelio Colista, who composes for and plays the lute excellently, a true virtuoso of the Bolognese musicians such as Giovanni Maria Bononcini (1642-1678) and Giovanni highest quality. Should Your Majesty be interested in having him at your Court, he is Battista Vitali (1632-1692), who in 1669, following Colista’s stay in Bologna, both a subject who would work well for all occasions...”. published sonatas for instrumental ensembles that reflect the handling of structure On 8th September 1669 Colista was back in Rome, where he married Margarita, and counterpoint typical of the Roman approach to the Sinfonia. This is particularly the daughter of the painter Girolamo Petrignani. The couple had 6 children, and evident in Bononcini’s use of “i canoni studiosi et osservati” (“strict, scholarly became increasingly prosperous, which was probably the cause of envy. This may canons”) and Vitali’s conviction that “essere i canoni realmente il vero esame di explain why Antimo Liberati never mentioned him in his writings, unlike Henry contrappunto” (“the canons are the true test of counterpoint”). Purcell, who spoke of the “famous Lelio Calista” in the 12th edition he revised of Of particular interest are the sinfonie WK 31 in E minor and WK 37 in G major, both of which contain sections between the first and second movements in which the Lelio Colista (Roma 13.01.1629 - ivi 13.10.1680) two violins and melodic basso alternately improvise on a framework provided by “Orfeo della città di Roma”: con queste inequivocabili parole Athanasius Kircher the basso continuo, marked with the indication “solo se piace” (“only if desired”), (Musurgia Universalis, Roma 1650) definisce un giovane Lelio Colista, portando ad reminding us that the greatest instrumentalists of the time were then in Rome. The esempio di imitazione alcune sinfonie per chitarra, liuto, tiorba ed arpa del “Lelio “bellissime sinfonie” thus bear witness to the fact that a musician now largely and amato” (come affettuosamente lo chiamerà nel 1667 Antonio Maria Abbatini wrongly forgotten was rightly held in very high esteem by famous contemporaries, in un sonetto autobiografico indirizzato a Sebastiano Baldini). Ultimogenito di including Kircher, Abbatini, Cesti, Sanz, Purcell and Pitoni. Margherita Riveri de Honorantis e di Pietro Colista (giurista e scrittore latino della © Pasquale Imbrenda Biblioteca Vaticana), inizia la sua formazione musicale come “putto cantore” e già Translation by Kate Singleton nel carnevale del 1638 compare come ballerino nella Pazzia di Orlando, un “ballo co’ gesti” andato in scena a Palazzo Barberini, su libretto di Giulio Rospigliosi, il futuro Papa Clemente IX, e musiche di Virgilio Mazzocchi e Marco Marazzoli (a quest’ultimo, grande virtuoso di arpa, era stata affidata la famosa Arpa Barberini, immortalata nell’Allegoria della musica, di Giovanni Lanfranco). Insomma, Colista è proiettato fin da giovanissimo nei fasti barocchi della corte Barberini, intorno alla quale gravitavano Frescobaldi, Kapsberger, Stefano Landi, Luigi Rossi e Domenico Mazzocchi (fratello del già ricordato Virgilio).