Lelio Colista (13 January 1629,

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

– 13 October 1680, Rome) was an Italian Baroque composer, lutenist, and guitarist.Michael Tilmouth, entry on Lelio Colista in New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980 Funded by his father, who held an important position in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...

, Colista early received an excellent musical education, probably at the ''Seminario Romano''. He mastered several instruments, especially the

lute A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck (music), neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted. More specifically, the term "lu ...

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

, and

theorbo The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck that houses the second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box with a flat top, typically with one or three sound holes decorated with rose ...

. Already at the age of 30, he held a lucrative post of ''custode delle pittore'' at the papal chapel. In the decade that followed (the 1660s) he was ''maestro di cappella'' at the

titular church In the Catholic Church, a titular church () is a Churches in Rome, church in Rome that is assigned to a member of the Holy orders in the Catholic Church, clergy who is created a Cardinal (Catholic Church), cardinal. These are Catholic churches in ...

in Rome

San Marcello al Corso San Marcello al Corso, is an ancient titular and conventual church in Rome, Italy. It has been served by friars of the Servite Order since c. 1375 and is the headquarters of their General Curia. The cardinal-protector of the church is norma ...

; two oratorios he wrote for San Marcello in 1661 and 1667 are now lost. In 1664, along with

Bernardo Pasquini Bernardo Pasquini (7 December 1637 – 21 November 1710) was an Italian composer of operas, oratorios, cantatas and keyboard music. A renowned virtuoso keyboard player, he was one of the most important Italian composers for harpsichord between Gir ...

, he was part of the entourage of 200 that accompanied Cardinal Flavio Chigi on a diplomatic mission to the court of

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

. During the last 20 years of his life, he was a composer and teacher in Rome who was in demand. He was the guitar teacher of

Gaspar Sanz Francisco Bartolomé Sanz Celma (April 4, 1640 ( baptized) – 1710), better known as Gaspar Sanz, was a Spanish composer, guitarist, and priest born to a wealthy family in Calanda in the comarca of Bajo Aragón, Spain. He studied music, theo ...

. In 1675 he became a member of the Arciconfraternita delle Sacre Stimatte in Rome. He wrote mostly instrumental music, and, though no pieces were published during his lifetime, his influence on the musicians residing in Rome and England was significant. Colista influenced Corelli's and Purcell's trio sonatas through his early ''da chiesa'' sonatas for two violins and

basso continuo Basso continuo parts, almost universal in the Baroque era (1600–1750), provided the harmonic structure of the music by supplying a bassline and a chord progression. The phrase is often shortened to continuo, and the instrumentalists playing th ...

, which the composer described as ''symphonies''.

Arcangelo Corelli Arcangelo Corelli (, also , ; ; 17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was an List of Italian composers, Italian composer and violinist of the middle Baroque music, Baroque era. His music was key in the development of the modern genres of Sonata a ...

mentioned Colista in the preface to his Opus 1 as one of the ''più professori musici di Roma''. Michael Tilmouth calls Colista "undoubtedly the most important of the Italian models for

Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: ; September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer of Baroque music, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas, ''Dido and Aeneas''; and his incidental music to a version o ...

's trio sonatas", "not only in terms of overall structure but also in the use of the term 'canzona' and in the nature and treatment, both contrapuntally and in regard to rhythmic modification of their thematic material." Colista's music was admired both by the audience and the patrons. In 1650, he was described as ''vere Romanae urbis Orpheus'' (truly the Orpheus of the city of Rome) by Jesuit scholar

Athanasius Kircher Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Society of Jesus, Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jes ...

. His works are usually referred to by the thematic catalogue by Antonella D'Ovidio, denoted WK.

References and further reading

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colista, Lelio 1629 births 1680 deaths Italian male classical composers Italian Baroque composers Italian lutenists Composers from Rome 17th-century Italian composers 17th-century Italian male musicians Musicians from the Papal States