Arresti, Aresti, Giulio Cesare, *26 February 1619 Bologna, †17 July 1701 Bologna, Italian organist, lutenist and composer. He was a pupil of his father Innocenzo and O. Vernizzi. From 1628, he worked in Bologna, first as a lutenist of the Concerto Palatino ensemble, then from 1649 to 1661 and 1671 to 1696 as an organist at S. Petronio, and also for a short period as a bandmaster at S. Salvatore (1668) and at SS. Rosario at the Basilica of S. Domenico (1680). He was one of the founders of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna; he was its president for three times (1671, 1686, 1694). In a dispute with M. Cazzati, choirmaster at S. Petronio, he wrote a polemical treatise Dialogo fatto tra un maestro ed un discepolo desideroso d’approfittare nel contrapunto (1659), to which Cazzati responded in Risposta alle oppositioni… (Bologna 1663).
Literature: Osvaldo Gambassi, La cappella musicale di S. Petronio: maestri, organisti, cantori e strumentisti dal 1436 al 1920, Florence 1987; Ursula Brett Music and Ideas in Seventeenth-Century Italy. The Cazzati-Arresti Polemic, in: Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities, 2 vols., New York 1989; Peter C. Allsop, The Italian ‘Trio” Sonata from its Origins until Corelli, Oxford, 1992; Marc Vanscheeuwijck, The Cappella Musicale of San Petronio in Bologna under Giovanni Paolo Colonna (1674-95). History, Organization, Repertoire, Brussels 2003.
Compositions:
Vocal-instrumental:
oratorios (lost music):
Il figliuol prodigo, staged in Bologna 1651
Licenza di Gesù da Maria, staged in Bologna 1661
L’orto di Getsemani glorioso nei sudori di Cristo, staged in Bologna 1661
Lo sposalizio di Rebecca, staged in Bologna 1675
cantata:
Scostati olà in anthology Melpomene coronata da Felsina, Bologna 1685
masses, motets, psalms and sacred concertos:
Messa e vespro della B. V… for 8 voices and organ ad libitum, Op. 1, Venice 1663
Messe… con sinfonie e ripieni à beneplacito, accompagnate da motetti e concerti for 3 voices, 2 violins, and organ, Op. 2, Venice 1663
Gare musicali, for 4 voices, Venice 1664
Instrumental:
Sonate for 2 violins, cello ad libitum and basso continuo, Op. 4, Venice 1665
Partitura di modulationi precettive sopra gl’hinni… for organ, Op. 7, Bologna 1665
3 sonatas in an anthology Sonate da organo di varii autori…, Bologna ca. 1697–98.
Editions:
Missa de Resurrectione, ed. Anne Schnoebelen, Nowy Jork 1997
Ad cantus, O fulgorem, ed. Candace Smith, Bruce Dickey, Bologna 2001
Sonate da organo di varii autori, ed. Jolando Scarpa, Magdeburg 2009.
