Cazzati, Maurizio
Cazzati, Maurizio
Cazzati, Maurizio, Italian organist and composer; b. Lucera, near Reggio Emilia, c. 1620; d. Mantua, 1677. He entered the priesthood and in 1641 served as organist and maestro di cappella at the church of S. Andrea in Mantua. After working at the court of the Duke of Sabioneta in Bozzolo (1647–48), he was maestro di cappella of the Accademia della Morte in Ferrara until 1653, and then at S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo. By 1657 he was in Bologna, where he became maestro di cappella at S. Petronio. He instituted many reforms during his tenure and did much to advance the cause of instrumental liturgical music. He engaged in disputes with various musicians, most bitterly with Arresti. After being dismissed from his post in 1671, he returned to Mantua as maestro di cappella to the Duchess Anna Isabella Gonzaga. He wrote five operas and 11 oratorios. He publ. 66 vols, of music, including ten instrumental, 43 sacred vocal, and nine secular vocal collections.
Bibliography
U. Brett, Music and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Italy: The C.-Arresti Polemic (N.Y. and London, 1989).
—Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire