(Bologna, November 5, 1666 - London, 1729)
Italian composer, singer, organist, cello virtuoso, and love viola. He was born to Giuseppe (who belonged to a Bolognese branch of the Nobile Ariosti family) and Caterina Sgargioli. It was baptized on November 10 in the church of S. Maria Maggiore with the name of Attilio Malachi, the latter later often replaced by the Ariosto with Clement.
Ariosto had two brothers: one older, Ludovico Agostino, who died a child, and a minor, Giovanni Battista, born in 1668, who, like him, became friar with the name of Odoardo and was a musician. In her testament, the mother died around 1716, as it is reported on four fevers. 1716 in the repertoire of surnames in the archive of the servants (Arch. Of State of Bologna), nomini his universal heir "The very R. Pre. Odoardo Ariosti, priest of the order of S. Maria de 'Servi, of this city, his son ..." and do not mention the other son Attilio. This desired omission must be sought in the adventurous life that led Ariosti and that little reconciled with the rules of the order that it should have observed.
Nothing is known about the musical education of the Ariosto. On June 21, 1688, he entered with two other young people, Giuseppe Franzoni and Gaspare Cavazza, in the convent of the servants for the probanded. We do not know the reasons why he became friar since, as the musician will demonstrate in his life, he always prevailed on the religious (so much so that he would write following Queen Sofia Carlotta of Prussia in a letter to Leibniz - perhaps of March 25, 1703 - that "the character in question [Ariosti], is said among us, dies of fear of pace in his convent, and this is pity on me").
On July 25, 1688, in the dressing ceremony, Ariosti took the name of Friar Ottavio; On July 28, 1689, he made his public profession, and on September 13, he took minor orders. Three years later (May 25, 1692), he became deacon. There is no news of his subsequent priestly ordination. In this period, Ariosti occupied the position of organist in the Church of Servants. In 1693, he had his oratory performed in Modena, the passion, on the text of C. Arnoldi, and, two years later, he printed for the types of Carlo Maria Fagnani of Bologna the entertainment of violin and cello chamber. His reputation as a musician soon passed the boundaries of his city, and in the spring of 1696, he was in Mantua at the service of that ducal court of the arts. In the 1696-97 season, finding himself in Venice -in all probability following the Duke Charles IV of Mantua, who was usually to spend the Carnival there -Ariosti composed the pastoral drama the Tersi, in collaboration with A. Lotti and A. Caldara, and also made his eryphile work performed. Perhaps from Venice herself, on the orders of the Duca, Ariosto went directly to Berlin at the court of Sofia Carlotta Elettice of Brandenburg, who, having received an excellent musical education at the Patema court of Hanover, had wanted to make Berlin a new center of Italian music and therefore had brought together many Italian artists around him, including the violinist N. Orio, the Tiorbista A. F. Moscatelli, the composite of F. Chiaravalle, previously in the service, such as Ariosti, of the Duke of Mantua. In this environment, in favor of his activity, Ariosti, in a few months, managed to conquer the benevolence of Sofia Carlotta, for which he soon became irreplaceable, thus arousing the envy of his colleagues - and in particular of Chiaravalle, who had been deprived of the electrical favor - and giving rise to different calumnious voices in his regard, albeit unfounded.
This slander (insinuation on the relations between Ariosti and Sofia Carlotta, his possible marriage with a court bridesmaid, etc.) made the Ariosti subject to a lengthy correspondence, complicated by a thin diplomatic game, between illustrious characters: Cardinal Francesco Maria Medici, Duke Giovanni Gastone of Tuscany, p. General of the Order of Servants, the philosopher Leibniz (who on occasion proved to be a skilled diplomatic and good friend of the Ariosto), the electric Sofia Carlotta - which in the meantime became Queen of Prussia -, the Duke Carlo IV of Mantua, the apostolic nuncio in Vienna Giovanni Antonio Davia, the prince bishop Jodocus Edmund of Hildesheün and others, among which, Ani, composer and one of the best representatives of Italian music in Germany, and the courtly poet Ortensio Mauro, who wrote some booklets for Ariosti.
The diatribe lasted for long years of resistance opposite by the Queen, who did not want to deprive himself of his favorite composer and for the little enthusiasm Ariosti showed in obeying the injunctions of his superiors to make a rhythm at home. Finally, the Queen had to sell, and in May 1703, following a last letter from the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III, he gave the permission requested for Ariosti to "return to Italy where his P. General wants him for the advantage of his religion" (Ebert). On June 13, Ariosti sent a letter of obedience to the general, in which he assured his next return but still passed a few months before his departure from Berlin. This happened, in fact, only in October, when the Queen was assured that Ariosti would not have incurred any disciplinary sanction. Still, it would have been "advanced to the degree of teacher ... to remunerate the obedience demonstrated by it by the Brandenburg court to the vault of Italy" (Ebert). On the return journey, Ariosto stopped in Vienna (November 24), where he remained until 1709 (after a short stay in Italy in 1708), making you represent new theatrical works, songs, and speakers, including the youthful passion.
Conquering the esteem and favor of Emperor Giuseppe I, Ariosto was appointed Aulic Master Minister and Agent of the Emperor "at all the courts and principles of Italy." However, gossip and envy were caused for him once again. According to G. Ghiselli (ancient manuscript memories of Bologna, LXXIX, p. 279), the rather worldly conduct of Ariosto, however, justified by the office of imperial minister, procured him after the death of Joseph I, which took place in 1711, the eviction from the Austrian and the papal states. He removed Italy, but where Ariosto went was ignored; in 1715, he made a trip to South Germany and Paris. In 1716, he was in London, where on July 12, he played the solo for viola of love in the symphony of the Amadigi of G. F. Haendel, arousing great interest for this tool then little used. In the following year, his work was represented by Tito Manlio at the Haymarket Theater (April 4). Then again, for another five years, there was no news of his activity since the attribution of the first act of the work Muzio Scevola (in fact composed of the cellist Filippo Amadei), written by the poet P. According to Fassini, a new work of Ariosto, hatred and love, would have closed the theatrical season 1720-21.
Returning to London in 1722, Ariosto obtained a directive charge in the Royal Academy of Music, for which he wrote seven works in just over four years. Although the success arises from the first of these, such as inducing the Walsh publisher in London to public the favorite songs, and despite having around him a remarkable group of admirers and protectors, Ariosto could not support the comparison with Haendel for a long time and after 1727, lost the favor of the public, left England. However, Ariosti managed to publish in London in 1728 by signing to the majesty of Giorgio King of the Gran Britain ... etc., a significant collection dedicated to Giorgio I, but which seems to have already been printed in 1724 under the title Cantattes and a Collection of Lessons for the Viola D'amore. Ariosti darkened the last years of his life, perhaps in Bologna. He died around 1740 in Spain, and Rolli gratified him with a mocking epitaph.
Ariosti is mentioned above all for the importance of its lessons -one- in the arched tools literature. Of his speakers, S. Radegonda Reina of France (Bologna 1694), The prophecy of Eliseo in the siege of Samaria (Ibid. 1704), the mother of the Maccabees (Vienna 1705), NabuccoDonosor (Ibid. 1706), the aforementioned youth work, the passion, which for the dramatic vigor and the powerful realism of the choirs, occupies a particular place in the history of the Italian, must be remembered.
However, rather than its numerous theatrical productions, the name of the Ariosto is linked to the room instrumental one and, in particular, to the six lessons for purple love. These are, in fact, six rattles for the instrument mentioned above and bass continuo modeled on the shape of the classic ancient sonata, which, from the mortgages that occurred between the church and room sonata, has been fixed definitively, even with its varieties, in that type that welcomes in itself some dance movements or from this derivative, some agile giga with a festive closure, movements almost always preceded by a time and processed in counterpoint style.
