Messa concertata a 6 voci con strumenti e ripieni

(Sacred vocal music)

Austrian National Library - Mus.Hs.18937 MUS MAG.

Trascrizione e Introduzione a cura di Tim Severloh

ISMN 979-0-705102-48-2

108 pag.

Giovanni Paolo Colonna, born in Bologna on June 16, 1637, was a composer, teacher, organist, and organ builder. He received his initial musical education from his father, Brescia-born organ builder Antonio Colonna (also known as dal Corno) and organist Agostino Filipucci, and it was thanks to this background that he remained a respected authority on organ building throughout his life. Around 1656, Colonna moved to Rome to study composition with Orazio Benevoli, Antonio Maria Abbatini, and Giacomo Carissimi, particularly acquiring the skills to write large-scale works for multiple choirs, which were to become a hallmark of his later years. He returned to Bologna in 1658 and began to make a name for himself as a composer, which led to his appointment as secondary organist at the Basilica of San Petronio the following year. It was to remain his center of activity for the rest of his life. He became principal organist in 1661, served as deputy maestro di cappella from 1671, and was named maestro di cappella in 1674, beating out prominent rivals including Giovanni Legrenzi. His marriage to Laura Felice Checchi in 1662 produced two sons, Giovanni Antonio and Giovanni Domenico. Following the death of his father that same year, he took over the elder Colonna’s responsibilities of maintaining and tuning the organ. In 1666, he was among the founding members of the Accademia Filarmonica, serving as its principe four times (in 1672, 1674, 1685, and 1691). Between 1680 and 1694, Colonna maintained important relations to noblemen and patrons in Italy and abroad, which included Francesco d’Este, Duke of Modena; Marquess Ippolito Bentivoglio di Ferrara; Ranuccio II Farnese, Duke of Parma; and Ferdinando Medici, Grand Prince of Tuscany. He published his first collection of compositions, Salmi brevi, in 1681.
In 1685, a bitter dispute arose in a series of letters between a group of composers from Bologna, led by Colonna, and Arcangelo Corelli. The cause was Corelli’s use of parallel fifths in the Allemande of the third sonata from his Opus 2. The disagreement between the two schools of composition reached such heights that Colonna lost his reputation among the Roman musical establishment. An attempt at reconciliation in 1694 failed, even though Pope Innocent XII asked Colonna to remain in Rome. Having suffered from a weak constitution for much of his life, Colonna died in Bologna on November 28, 1695.
The present mass is part of the largest existing collection of Colonna’s compositions, housed today at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The manuscript bears the shelf mark Mus.Hs.18937 MUS MAG.
Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Vienna in 1683, Colonna contributed several works to the victory celebrations in Bologna, which won his music the esteem of Emperor Leopold I. In 1686, the emperor had Colonna send him copies of all his sacred compositions for his personal collection. Eighty-three of these predominantly large-scale works survive today.

Tim Severloh