Linux Voice From March 2015

Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1637-1695) was a native of Bologna and the music director of one of its major churches, dedicated to San Petronio, where he presided over a rich culture of sacred music distinguished by participation from names now far better known to us such as Torelli, Bononcini and Giovanni Gabrieli.

Among the different practices of the Renaissance, the act of singing to the accompaniment of the lyre held a special symbolic role, linked to the myth of Orpheus and to the divine figure of Apollo. With its origins in the mid-15th century, this recitation of epic and lyrical texts initially took the form of monophonic music accompanied by the lira da braccio. With the invention of the lirone in the years around 1500, the role of the accompaniment develops into the recitative style of the 1600s which led to the development of the earliest operas.