Orazio Benevoli orBenevolo (19 April 1605 – 17 June 1672) was a Franco-Italian composer of large scaledpolychoral sacred choral works (e.g., one work featured forty-eight vocal and instrumental lines) of themiddle Baroque era.
He was born inRome to a French baker and confectioner, Robert Venouot or Vénevot,[1] whose name was Italianized toBenevolo. Benevoli was a choirboy atSan Luigi dei Francesi inRome (1617–23). He later assumed posts asmaestro di cappella at Santa Maria inTrastevere (from 1624),Santo Spirito in Sassia (from 1630), and his old churchSan Luigi dei Francesi (from 1638). Benevoli served asKapellmeister in the court ofArchduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria from 1644 to 1646. Benevoli returned toRome (1646), where he remained for the rest of his life as choirmaster at bothSanta Maria Maggiore and theCappella Giulia ofSt. Peter's Basilica. He was madeGuardiano of theVatican'sCongregazione di Santa Cecilia in the following three years of 1654, 1665 and 1667.[2]
His pupils includedErcole Bernabei,Antimo Liberati andPaolo 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 partMissa Salisburgensis, which musicologists long believed was written by Benevoli in Salzburg Cathedral in 1628. Nevertheless, external and internal evidence subsequently demonstrated that theMass is in fact the work ofcomposerHeinrich Ignaz Biber, and that it dates not from 1628 but from 1682.
Benevoli's sacred compositions frequently make use of four or more choirs. Many of Benevoli's works are massive and in theColossal Baroque style. Sixteen masses for 8 to 16 voices survive.[3]Little of the music of Benevoli has been performed or recorded in modern times.
