Orazio Benevoli or Benevolo (19 April 1605 – 17 June 1672), was a Franco-Italian composer of large scaled polychoral sacred choral works (e.g., one work featured forty-eight vocal and instrumental lines) of the middle Baroque era.
He was born in Rome, to a French baker and confectioner, Robert Venouot or Vénevot,[1] which name was Italianized to Benevolo. Benevoli was a choirboy at San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome (1617–23). Later, he assumed posts as maestro di cappella at Santa Maria in Trastevere (from 1624); then, at Santo Spirito in Sassia (from 1630); and, eventually, at his old church, San Luigi dei Francesi (from 1638). Benevoli served as Kapellmeister in the court of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria from 1644 to 1646. In 1646, Benevoli returned to Rome, where he remained for the rest of his life, and where he served as choirmaster at Santa Maria Maggiore and at the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter's Basilica. He was made Guardiano of the Vatican's Congregazione di Santa Cecilia in the following three years: 1654, 1665 and 1667.
His pupils included: Ercole Bernabei, Antimo Liberati and Paolo Lorenzani. See: List of music students by teacher: A to B#Orazio Benevoli.
Benevoli composed Masses, motets, Magnificats, and other sacred vocal works. Much of his fame as a composer has rested largely on his supposed composition of the fifty-three part Missa Salisburgensis, which musicologists long believed was written by Benevoli in Salzburg Cathedral in 1628. Nevertheless, external and internal evidence subsequently demonstrated that the Mass is in fact the work of composer Heinrich Ignaz Biber, and that it dates not from 1628 but from 1682.
Works, editions and recordings edit
Benevoli's sacred compositions frequently make use of four or more choirs. Many of Benevoli's works are massive and in the Colossal Baroque style. Sixteen masses for 8 to 16 voices survive.[2] Little of the music of Benevoli has been performed or recorded in modern times.
- Orazio Benevolo - Sacred Music - Missa Azzolina Magnificat Dixit Dominus, Le Concert Spirituel (Niquet). Naxos (1996)
- Missa Tira Corda a 16, Tölzer Knabenchor (Gerhard Schmidt-Gaden) (2010)
References edit
- ^ Robert Venouot came from Lorraine. See also Alberto Cametti, La scuola dei pueri cantus di S. Luigi dei francesi in Roma e i suoi principali allievi (1591–1623): Gregorio, Domenico e Bartolomeo Allegri, Antonio Cifra, Orazio Benevoli, Fratelli Bocca, Torino, 1915, p. 631.
- ^ Reclams Führer zur lateinischen Kirchenmusik Michael Wersin - 2006 Etwa zeitgleich komponierte Orazio Benevolo (1605 bis 1672, ab 1646 Kapellmeister am Petersdom in Rom), von dem insgesamt etwa 16 acht- bis sechzehnstimmige Messzyklen überliefert sind, in Rom seine Missa Azzolina für zwei fünfstimmige
External links edit
- Orazio Benevoli (1605 - 1672) at "Here of a Sunday Morning" website
- Orazio Benevolo at Naxos Records
- Free scores by Orazio Benevoli at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Free scores by Orazio Benevoli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- A review of debut recording of Orazio Benevoli's Missa Si Deus Pro Nobis, Magnificat