Alessandro Scarlatti
 |
Alessandro Scarlatti |
Alessandro Scarlatti (
May 2,
1660 –
October 24,
1725) was a
Baroque composer especially famous for his
operas and chamber
cantatas. He is considered the founder of the
Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other Baroque composers,
Domenico Scarlatti and
Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.
Scarlatti was born in Sicily, either in
Trapani or
Palermo. He is generally said to have been a pupil of
Giacomo Carissimi in
Rome, and there is reason to suppose that he had some connection with northern Italy, since his early works show the influence of
Stradella and
Legrenzi. The production at Rome of his opera
Gli Equivoci nell’amore (
1679) gained him the protection of Queen
Christina of Sweden (who at the time was living in Rome), and he became her
maestro di cappella. In February
1684 he became
maestro di cappella to the
viceroy of
Naples, through the influence of his sister, an opera singer, who was the mistress of an influential Neapolitan noble. Here he produced a long series of
operas, remarkable chiefly for their fluency and expressiveness, as well as other music for state occasions.
In
1702 Scarlatti left Naples and did not return until the Spanish domination had been superseded by that of the Austrians. In the interval he enjoyed the patronage of
Ferdinand III of Tuscany, for whose private theatre near
Florence he composed operas, and of
Cardinal Ottoboni, who made him his
maestro di cappella, and procured him a similar post at the
Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in
1703.
After visiting
Venice and
Urbino in
1707, Scarlatti took up his duties at Naples again in
1708, and remained there until
1717. By this time Naples seems to have become tired of his music; the Romans, however, appreciated it better, and it was at the
Teatro Capranica in Rome that he produced some of his finest operas (
Telemaco,
1718;
Marco Attilio Regolò,
1719;
Griselda,
1721), as well as some noble specimens of church music, including a
mass for chorus and orchestra, composed in honor of
Saint Cecilia for
Cardinal Acquaviva in 1721. His last work on a large scale appears to have been the unfinished
serenata for the marriage of the prince of
Stigliano in
1723. Scarlatti died in Naples.
Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the early
Baroque Italian vocal styles of the
17th century, with their centers in
Florence,
Venice and
Rome, and the classical school of the
18th century, which culminated in
Mozart. His early operas (
Gli Equivoci nel sembiante 1679;
L’Honestà negli amori 1680, containing the famous aria "Già il sole dal Gange";
Pompeo 1683, containing the well-known airs "O cessate di piagarmi" and "Toglietemi la vita ancor," and others down to about
1685) retain the older cadences in their
recitatives, and a considerable variety of neatly constructed forms in their charming little arias, accompanied sometimes by the string quartet, treated with careful elaboration, sometimes by the harpsichord alone. By
1686 he had definitely established the "Italian overture" form (second edition of
Dal male il bene), and had abandoned the
ground bass and the
binary form air in two stanzas in favour of the
ternary form or
da capo type of air. His best operas of this period are
La Rosaura (
1690, printed by the
Gesellschaft für Musikforschung), and
Pirro e Demetrio (
1694), in which occur the arias "Rugiadose, odorose", and "Ben ti sta, traditor".
From about
1697 onwards (
La Caduta del decemviri), influenced partly perhaps by the style of
Giovanni Bononcini and probably more by the taste of the viceregal court, his opera arias become more conventional and commonplace in rhythm, while his scoring is hasty and crude, yet not without brilliance (
Eracles,
1700), the
oboes and
trumpets being frequently used, and the
violins often playing in unison. The operas composed for
Ferdinand de' Medici are lost; they might have given a more favourable idea of his style as his correspondence with the prince shows that they were composed with a very sincere sense of inspiration.
Mitridate Eupatore, accounted his masterpiece, composed for Venice in
1707, contains music far in advance of anything that Scarlatti had written for Naples, both in technique and in intellectual power. The later Neapolitan operas (
L'Amor volubile e tiranno 1700;
La Principessa fedele 1712;
Tigrane,
1715, &c.) are showy and effective rather than profoundly emotional; the instrumentation marks a great advance on previous work, since the main duty of accompanying the voice is thrown upon the string quartet, the harpsichord being reserved exclusively for the noisy instrumental
ritornelli. In his opera
Teodora (
1697) he originated the use of the orchestral
ritornello.
His last group of operas, composed for Rome, exhibit a deeper poetic feeling, a broad and dignified style of melody, a strong dramatic sense, especially in accompanied recitatives, a device which he himself had been the first to use as early as
1686 (
Olimpia vendicata) and a much more modern style of orchestration, the horns appearing for the first time, and being treated with striking effect.
Besides the operas,
oratorios (
Agar et Ismaele esiliati,
1684;
Christmas Oratorio, c.
1705;
S. Filippo Neri,
1714; and others) and
serenatas, which all exhibit a similar style, Scarlatti composed upwards of five hundred chamber-cantatas for solo voice. These represent the most intellectual type of chamber-music of their period, and it is to be regretted that they have remained almost entirely in manuscript, since a careful study of them is indispensable to anyone who wishes to form an adequate idea of Scarlatti's development.
His few remaining masses (the story of his having composed two hundred is hardly credible) and church music in general are comparatively unimportant, except the great
St Cecilia Mass (
1721), which is one of the first attempts at the style which reached its height in the great masses of
Johann Sebastian Bach and
Beethoven. His instrumental music, though not without interest, is curiously antiquated as compared with his vocal works.
* Accademia Bizantina. (2004).
Il Giardino di Rose.
Decca: 470 650-2 DSA.
* Seattle Baroque. (2001).
Agar et Ismaele Esiliati. Centaur: CRC 2664
* I Musici. (1991).
Concerto Grosso. Philips Classics Productions: 434 160-2
*
