ISORELLI, DIONISIO. - Musician, b. at Parma in 1544, d. at Rome on 21 Apr. 1632. After serving at the Medici court in Florence as an organizer of entertainments (e.g., the intermedi of 1589), he came to Rome, where he entered the Congregation of the Oratory at the Vallicella as a layman in 1599.
He collaborated with E. Del Cavaliere in the staging of the Rappresentazione di anima e corpo, working actively to establish in Rome that monodic recitative style which in Florence had already brought them together in advocating the renewal of Italian music. I. was a good viola player and himself a composer: the Rappresentazione del figliol prodigo, to a text by Fr. Agostino Manni, whose music L. is thought to have composed, is, together with L'anima e corpo by E. Del Cavalieri, an example of those spiritual representations that have the closest affinity with the Oratorio properly so called. In the new recitative style he wrote Lamentations for Holy Thursday. Two of his laude, “Perché così facesti” and “Mentre a noi vibra,” are found in the Tempio armonico by Animuccia (Rome 1599, pt. 1, pp. 102 and 151).