Complete Trio Sonatas

Book excerpt: Lelio Colista (1629–80) is considered the foremost composer of Italian trio sonatas in Rome before Corelli. In the Papal City, where he lived for most of his life, he was an acclaimed lutenist, composer, and teacher. He was part of a closely-knit professional milieu including the most appreciated instrumentalists of his generation, such as Alessandro Stradella, Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, and Carlo Mannelli. However, Colista’s trio sonatas were not published during his lifetime. No autograph has survived, and the many manuscript sources are today scattered throughout various European libraries. Their wide dissemination bears witness to the significant circulation of Colista’s trio sonatas in the last decades of the seventeenth century, particularly in England. This volume presents a critical edition of the complete output of Colista’s trio sonatas, and offers for the first time a full reassessment of the entire manuscript transmission, including all the known sources and concordances, as well as incomplete and doubtful works.