Born in Tortona (Alessandria) on December 21, 1872.
Died in Vatican City on October 12, 1956.
He learned his first musical notions from his father Giuseppe, organist of the Tortona cathedral, then followed courses at the Milan conservatory, Montecassino and Regensburg. In 1894 he was appointed maestro di cappella of the basilica of S. Marco in Venice by the will of the patriarch Sarto who ordained him a priest on 21 September 1895. On 13 December 1898, after directing his oratorio The Resurrection of Christ in Rome, he was appointed maestro perpetual director of the Sistine chapel alongside Domenico Mustafà, remaining alone in the direction from 1 January 1903. He was a fruitful collaborator in the dissemination of new melodies conforming to the reform of sacred music, as well as a member of the Commissions for the edition of Gregorian liturgical books and for sacred music and singing.
Don Guanella had the opportunity to greet him in 1899, when Maestro Perosi went to Como for the first performance of his fifth oratorio The Nativity of Jesus Christ during the Volta centenary. Perosi would have donated the proceeds of one of the two performances to the Casa Divina Provvidenza. Perosi himself then recalled having sat together with don Guanella in 1910 in the Roman palace of the Taverna.
Sources:
Sergio Pagano (edited by), The «Vatican» correspondence of Lorenzo Perosi (1867-1956), Genoa, Marietti, 1996.
Franco Baggiani, San Pio X, Lorenzo Perosi and the Italian Association of Santa Cecilia, creators of the reform of Sacred Music in Italy at the beginning of the 2003th century, Pisa, Edizioni ETS, 63, pp. 73-89, 94-136 and XNUMX.
Guanellian sources:
To Lorenzo Perosi the House of Divine Providence, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1899, p. 11.
Our dead, in «La Divina Provvidenza», 1956, p. 162-164.
Photographs:
"Divine Providence", 1941, p. 69.