Domenico Zipoli (1688 – 1726) was an Italian Baroque
composer who worked and died in Córdoba, in the
Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire, (presently in
Argentina). He became a Jesuit in order to work in the
Reductions of Paraguay where he taught music among the
Guaraní people. He is remembered as the most
accomplished musician among Jesuit missionaries. He was
born in Prato, Italy, where he received elementary
musical training. However, there are no records of him
having entered the cathedra...(+)
Domenico Zipoli (1688 – 1726) was an Italian Baroque
composer who worked and died in Córdoba, in the
Viceroyalty of Peru, Spanish Empire, (presently in
Argentina). He became a Jesuit in order to work in the
Reductions of Paraguay where he taught music among the
Guaraní people. He is remembered as the most
accomplished musician among Jesuit missionaries. He was
born in Prato, Italy, where he received elementary
musical training. However, there are no records of him
having entered the cathedral choir. In 1707, and with
the patronage of Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, he
was a pupil of the organist Giovani Maria Casini in
Florence. In 1708 he briefly studied under Alessandro
Scarlatti in Naples, then Bologna and finally in Rome
under Bernardo Pasquini. Two of his oratorios date to
this early period: San Antonio di Padova (1712) and
Santa Caterina, Virgine e martire (1714). Around 1715
he was made the organist of the Church of the Gesù
(the mother church for the Society of Jesus), in Rome,
a prestigious post. At the very beginning of the
following year, he finished his best-known work, a
collection of keyboard pieces titled Sonate
d'intavolatura per organo e cimbalo.
For reasons that are not clear, Zipoli traveled to
Sevilla, Spain, in 1716, where, on 1 July, he joined
the Society of Jesus with the desire to be sent to the
Reductions of Paraguay in Spanish Colonial America.
Still a novice, he left Spain with a group of 53
missionaries who reached Buenos Aires on 13 July
1717.
He completed his formation and sacerdotal studies in
Córdoba (in contemporary Argentina) (1717–1724)
though, for the lack of an available bishop, he could
not be ordained priest. All through these few years he
served as music director for the local Jesuit church.
Soon his works came to be known in Lima, Peru. Struck
by an unknown infectious disease, Zipoli died in the
Jesuit house of Córdoba, on 2 January 1726. A previous
theory placing his death in the ancient Jesuit church
of Santa Catalina, in the hills of the Province of
Córdoba, has now been discredited. His burial place
has never been found.
Zipoli continues to be well known today for his
keyboard music; many of them are well within the
abilities of beginning to intermediate players, and
appear in most standard anthologies. His Italian
compositions have always been known but recently some
of his South American church music was discovered in
Chiquitos, Bolivia: two Masses, two psalm settings,
three Office hymns, a Te Deum laudamus and other
pieces. A Mass copied in Potosí, Bolivia in 1784, and
preserved in Sucre, Bolivia, seems a local compilation
based on the other two Masses. His dramatic music,
including two complete oratorios and portions of a
third one, is mostly gone. Three sections of the
'Mission opera' San Ignacio de Loyola – compiled by
Martin Schmid in Chiquitos many years after Zipoli's
death, and preserved almost complete in local sources
– have been attributed to Zipoli.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domenico_Zipoli).
Although originally written for Keyboard, I created
this Interpretation of the Sonata in B Minor (Op. 1 No.
17) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
