Domenico Zipoli

Society of Jesus

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Domenico Zipoli (October 17, 1688, Prato, Italy – January 2, 1726, Cordoba, Argentina) was an Italian Baroque composer. He became a Jesuit in order to work in the Reductions of Paraguay where his musical expertise contributed to develop the natural musical talents of the Guaranis. He is remembered as the most accomplished musician among Jesuit missionaries.

Early training and career

During early schooling years Zipoli received elementary musical training at Prato, his birthplace. 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 of 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, 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.

Jesuit musician-missionary

For reasons that are not clear, Zipoli travelled to Sevilla, Spain, in 1716, where 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 the 13 July 1717. He completed his formation and sacerdotal studies in Cordoba (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 Cordoba (in contemporary Argentina), 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 (Argentina), has now been discredited. His burial place has never been found.

Legacy

Zipoli continues to be well known today for his keyboard music. 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.

For decades, his music continued to be highly regarded by his Jesuit colleagues, decisively influencing later composers.

Media

References

• Ayestarán, Lauro. Domenico Zipoli, Vida y obra, Montevideo, 1962.
• Franze, Juan Pedro, La obra completa para órgano de Domenico Zipoli, Buenos Aires, 1974.
• Gasta, Chad M. “Opera and Spanish Evangelization in the New World,” Gestos 44, 2008, 85-106.
• Illari, Bernardo. Domenico Zipoli: Para una genealogía de la música clásica latinoamericana (Havanna: Casa de las Américas, 2011).

External links

• Free scores by Domenico Zipoli in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Domenico Zipoli at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Domenico Zipoli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Recordings of Intavolatura performed on virtual organs and harpsichords
• Lorenzo Ghielmi, organist performs Zipoli's 'All'Elevazione'
• The Zippoli Institute

Persondata
Name	Zipoli, Domenico
Alternative names
Short description	Italian Baroque composer
Date of birth	17 October 1688
Place of birth	Prato, Italy
Date of death	2 January 1726
Place of death	Córdoba, Argentina