Life
He was born in Longiano, near Forlì, southwest of Ravenna. He studied in Naples as a boy, but most of his career was spent in northern Italy. In 1582 he took a position as maestro di cappella at Imola cathedral. For the rest of his life he worked in a number of Italian cities in a similar capacity: in Carpi (1591), Venice, at Cà Grande (1594 or 1595), Montagnana (1595), Ferrara (1597), Osimo (1599), Ravenna (1600), Reggio (1603), Forlì (later in 1603). In 1606 he briefly returned to his post at Cà Grande in Venice, but almost immediately quit and moved to Padua to become maestro di cappella at the church of S Antonio there. His succession of appointments continued: in 1610 he was maestro di cappella at Assisi; in 1611 he returned to Imola, where he stayed for two years; and he returned to Cà Grande yet another time, in 1615. In 1621 he moved back to Imola to resume his position there yet again; records of his activities end at that point.
While his rapid changes of employment might give one the impression of a restless and unfaithful employee, he apparently was highly regarded as an honorable and professional man. What kept him from being in the first rank of composers may have been his succession of employments in backwater areas — for example he never held a post at San Marco, and his stay in Ferrara coincided with the takeover of that formerly avant-garde musical center by the Papal States.
Read more about this topic: Giulio Belli
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“It is conceivable at least that a late generation, such as we presumably are, has particular need of the sketch, in order not to be strangled to death by inherited conceptions which preclude new births.... The sketch has direction, but no ending; the sketch as reflection of a view of life that is no longer conclusive, or is not yet conclusive.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his raison d’être.... This is why the clergyman is so often called a “vicar”Mhe being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate: when he can’t afford it, and when he can.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)