Belli, Giulio
Belli, Giulio
Belli, Giulio, Italian composer; b. Longiano, near Forli, c. 1560; d. probably in Imola, c. 1621. He was a pupil of Cimelio in Naples. In 1579 he entered the Franciscan monastery in Longiano. After serving as maestro di cappella at Imola Cathedral (1582–90) and at S. Maria in Carpi (1590–91), he was named praefectus musices at S. Francesco in Bologna in 1591. About 1594 he went to Venice and became maestro di cappella at the church of the Cà Grande, and then held that post at Montagnana Cathedral in 1596-97, and subsequently at the court of Duke Alfonso II d’Este and at the Accademia della Morte in Ferrara; he also was maestro at Osimo Cathedral in 1599. In 1600 he became maestro di cappella at the cathedral and archiepiscopal seminary in Ravenna, and then at Forli Cathedral in 1603. In 1606 he resumed his duties at the Cà Grande but then was maestro di cappella at S. Antonio in Padua (1606–08), at S. Francesco in Assisi (1610), again at Imola Cathedral (1611–13), and once more at the Cà Grande (1615). In 1621 he returned to Imola. Among his works, all publ. in Venice, were two books of canzonets for four Voices (1584, 3rd ed., 1595; 1593); books of madrigals for five to six Voices (1589), six Voices (1590), and five to six Voices (1592–93); masses for Voices (1586), eight Voices (1595; 2nd ed., 1607, with basso continuo), four Voices (1599; 3rd ed., 1615, with basso continuo), and for four to six and eight Voices and Basso Continuo (organ) (1608); Psalms and vespers for five Voices (1592), eight Voices (1596; 3rd ed., 1615, with basso continuo), and for six Voices (1603; 3rd ed., 1607, with basso continuo); Sacra-rum cantionum for four to six, eight, and 12 Voices (1600); motets and falsi bordoni for eight Voices (1605) and six Voices and Basso Continuo (organ) (1607); falsi bordoni for four Voices and Basso Continuo (organ) (1607); and Concerti ecclesiastici for two to three Voices (1613).
Bibliography
A. Brigidi, Cenni sulla vita e sulle opere di G. B. Longianese (Modena, 1865).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire