Biography
Colonna was born in Bologna, then part of the Papal States. He was a pupil of Filippuzzi in his native city, and of Antonio Maria Abbatini and Orazio Benevoli in Rome, where for a time he held the post of organist at S. Apollinare. A dated poem in praise of his music shows that he began to distinguish himself as a composer in 1659. In that year he was chosen organist at S. Petronio in Bologna, where on 1 November 1674 he was made chapel-master. He also became president of the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna.
Most of Colonna's works are for the church, including settings of the psalms for three, four, five and eight voices, and several masses and motets. He also composed an opera, under the title Amilcare, and an oratorio, La Profezia d'Eliseo. The emperor Leopold I received a copy of every composition of Colonna, so that the imperial library in Vienna possesses upwards of 83 church compositions by him.
Colonna's style is for the most part dignified, but is not free from the inequalities of style and taste almost unavoidable at a period when church music was in a state of transition, and had hardly learnt to combine the gravity of the old style with the brilliance of the new.
He died in Bologna in 1695.
Read more about this topic: Giovanni Paolo Colonna
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