very much to his taste. As yet we are without a carefully prepared
biography, and little is known of this part of his career beyond the
names and times of performance of the operas, which followed each
other rapidly, at the rate of at least three a year during his entire
productive career. Among those of the first ten years at Naples, the
following are to be mentioned: "Pirro e Demetri," 1697; "Il Prigionero
Fortunato," 1698; and "Laodicea e Berenice," 1701. During this period he
was director of the conservatory of San Onofrio.
Here, moreover, he at least inspired the teaching of the voice, for
it was at this school, under Scarlatti's direction, that many of the
most eminent singers of the first quarter of the eighteenth century
were educated. Among the names mentioned in this connection are those
of Farinelli, Senesimo, and Mme. Faustina Hasse. It is probable that
Scarlatti himself taught singing, in support of which reasons will be
mentioned later.
At this time Naples was in considerable disturbance of a political
kind, and in 1703 the situation became insupportable to Scarlatti, who
thereupon turned his steps once more towards Rome, where he was appointed
assistant musical director of Santa Maria Maggiore, in 1703. Four years
later, upon the death of the musical director, Antoine Foggia, he was
made full director. He was also made the musical director at the palace
of the distinguished and magnificent Cardinal Ottoboni.
He had now come to the full measure of his powers and popularity. One
of his celebrated works, "Il Caduta de Decemviri," was played in 1706;
another, "Il Trionfo della Liberta," was played at Venice in 1707. He
composed with the greatest spontaneity. Burney, the musical historian,
mentions seeing the manuscripts of thirty-five cantatas by Scarlatti,
which he composed at Tivoli, in the month of October, 1704, while on
a visit to his friend, André Adami, chaplain singer in the pontifical
chapel. These works were dated, and the dates show that they were written
at the rate of one a day. Quanz, the celebrated flute player, visited
Naples in 1725, when Scarlatti was a very old man, and met him several
times. He mentions a certain wealthy amateur who had collected four
hundred manuscript compositions of Scarlatti.
It was during the Roman residence that the young Handel formed the
acquaintance of the two Scarlattis, for the son Domenico was by this time
the very first clavier virtuoso in Italy. Handel was so much interested
that he accompanied the Scarlattis upon their return to Naples, where the
master resumed his position as court musical director, in 1709. Handel
remained in Naples, studying the cantata style of Scarlatti, until the
spring of the following year.
In his later residence at Naples his activity continued, but the very
names of many of his works are now lost. Among the most important of
these may be mentioned the opera of "Tigrane," which was played in 1715.
Another, "Griselda," was produced in 1721. In addition to the direction
of the conservatory of San Onofrio, he appears to have taught musical
composition at the two other conservatories, of Dei Poveri and Di Loreto.
His activity as composer continued almost to the end of his long and
honored life. He died Oct. 24, 1725.
* * * * *
The total number of Scarlatti's secular operas was more than one hundred
and fifteen. He composed many oratorios, among which may be mentioned
"I Dolore di Maria," "Il Sacrafizio d'Abramo," "Il Martirio di S.
Teodosia," "La Concezzione della Beata Virgine," "La Sposa di Sacra
Cantici," "S. Fillipo Neri," "La Virgine Addolorata," etc. There were
about two hundred masses, and more than four hundred secular cantatas.
The latter are semi-dramatic settings of short texts for a single voice,
with accompaniments for clavier, or combinations of instruments for
chamber use. The vast number of pieces of the latter class, together
with many other compositions nearly allied to them (chamber duets for
voice and light accompaniment, etc.), can only be regarded as having
been occasioned by special circumstances in the way of facilities for
performance. For it must be remembered that nearly all of these works
demand of the singer a degree of virtuosity which was then extremely
rare, and to be found perhaps scarcely at all outside the pupils of
Scarlatti himself. The solution is to be found in the fact already
mentioned that the master himself was a fine singer. Furthermore he had
a daughter, La Flaminia, who seems to have been a singularly gifted
creature. Bernardo de Domenice, in Vol. IV. of his "Vite d'Pittori,
Scultori, ed Archetetti napolitain" (Lives of the Painters, Sculptors,
and Architects of Naples), is quoted by Florimo, in his "La Scuola
Musicale di Napoli" (Marano, 1880), as saying of Francesco Solimene, that
he was a lover of music, and in the habit of spending much time at the
house of Scarlatti, whose daughter La Flaminia was a wonderful singer,
full of dramatic fervor and gifted with a magnificent voice. It would
seem, therefore, that these works may have been composed primarily for
his own satisfaction and for the pleasure of his own family circle.
In respect to the facility with which he composed, as well as in the
agreeable manner of writing for the voice, Scarlatti was the true founder
of later Italian opera, his principles of composition having been almost
universally followed until past the middle of the present century. But
unlike some of the modern Italians, Scarlatti's ease of production rested
upon most thorough attainments in counterpoint and the technical mastery
of material. His great masses are monuments of learning, and by good
judges are counted worthy of being placed beside those most honored in
the annals of ecclesiastical music. Among the most celebrated of these
works are a four-voice requiem, an "Ave Regina Cælorum" for two voices
and organ, a great four-voice canon, a five-voice mass with orchestra,
a great pastoral mass for two choirs, eleven voices, with orchestra and
organ, and a famous motette, "Tu es Petrus," for two choirs. This was
sung at the coronation of Napoleon I. by a choir of thirty papal singers,
specially imported for the purpose.
The greater part of the works of Scarlatti are lost, or lie concealed
in the archives of the religious houses for which many of them were
composed. The archives of the Royal College of Music at Naples contain
fifty works of his, among which there are seven of his operas.
[Illustration: Fac-simile autograph manuscript written by Scarlatti.
Original is in the British Museum.]
It is by no means easy at the present day to discriminate between the
musical reforms which Scarlatti actually invented himself, and those
which tradition has somewhat generously attributed to him, but which were
in fact the fortunate discoveries of earlier composers soon forgotten.
Speaking in general terms, between Scarlatti and Monteverde a full
century intervened, a century of such feverish musical activity as the
world has scarcely ever seen equalled. Many gifted men took up the
representative style where Monteverde left it, and small reforms were
continually introduced. Scarlatti is credited with having made the aria
more symmetrical by introducing the _da capo_ after the middle part. He
is also held by some to have invented, or greatly perfected, the Italian
art of singing, and to have introduced running divisions for the display
of the technique of the singers. In this point he is the forerunner of
the later Italian composers. It is not at all easy to define the precise
limitations between Scarlatti's work and that of the other composers,
famous in their times, but now almost forgotten. Few of their works are
now accessible, and the extracts in such collections as Gevaert's "Les
Gloires de l'Italie" may have been edited with the additions required for
modern ideas. But so far as I feel justified in drawing conclusions from
the evidence accessible, the following are among the more important facts
in the case:--
In Peri's "Eurydice" the aria occupies the smallest possible place.
Giulio Caccini, his amateur co-worker, has an aria published in 1600
from "Nymphes des Ondes," called _Fere selvagge che per monti errato_,
which is in the key of G, moderato, two periods, eight and six measures.
The air by Peri, already mentioned, was sixteen measures, in sustained
tones, symmetrical, and fulfilling the proper place of aria, which is
that of emphasizing and idealizing an important moment in the drama.
Gavaert's collection contains one by Marco Gagliano, a duet for two
voices, _Alma mea dove ten vai_, which is in the key of D minor, and
runs in thirds in the regulation Italian style. It is evident that here
we have not to do with the representative style, but with a folks song
more or less idealized. A cantata for solo voice, by Luigi Rossi, 1640,
printed in Gevaert's collection, had the theme resumed after the middle
part, in a manner quite equivalent to the _da capo_. This song also
is notable for the amount of vocal running work which it contains (an
interesting circumstance, considering the comparatively early period of
its production after the discovery of the representative style); in this
there are from eight to sixteen notes to a syllable, sixteenths in common
time. Even the recitative in the dramatic part of this cantata has the
pyrotechnic divisions. Cavalli, an aria from whose "Giasone" appears in
Gevaert's collection (1649), seems to have held rather a meagre idea of
the possibility of the aria. One of the more interesting of these early
specimens is the aria or canzone, _Farci pazzo da caterna_, which is
practically a duet with its own accompaniment, the voice answering the
leading motive in the bass. It is somewhat defective in symmetry, but its
general effect is admirable.
Scarlatti was far more richly endowed than these composers, both by
nature and by art. In the Newberry Library, Chicago, there is one opera
of Scarlatti's complete, "La Rosaura" (Edition of the German Society for
Musical Research), which was probably produced between 1689 and 1692. As
compared with the operas by Monteverde, the melody of this work is much
more free. There is a _largo_ prelude and aria of Climene in the second
scene, with a string introduction, beautifully done. The violin part is
very noble and effective. The second part of the aria is in A minor and
other keys, ending in C minor, after which there is a _da capo_, bringing
back the main aria. I know not whether this _da capo_ was written by
Scarlatti, or was an addition by the later editor; but inasmuch as the
date of this opera so closely coincides with that of "Teodora" (1693),
generally regarded as the first example of the _da capo_, this may well
enough be an earlier case, unknown to the former writers. In the fifth
scene there are some running divisions which are extended to considerable
length, the word "spasso," for instance, having seven beats of common
time, sixteenths. Throughout this work minor tonality preponderates
very much, all the airs being in minor, and only one or two of the
_ritournelli_ being in major. Rosaura has a good air in the second act,
and there is a remarkably fine piece of work for violin solo, lute, and
'cello, the cembale being silent.
M. Fétis says that in "Il Cadute de' Decemviri," played in 1705, "All
the airs have a sentiment corresponding with the words, and a taking
originality. Many have a solo violin with two other violin parts. In the
second act an air of touching expression is accompanied by violin solo,
with obbligati 'celli, and bass alone. The piece is full of strange
harmonies and bold modulations, and is of exquisite beauty."
It was Scarlatti's good fortune to be active as a composer at the very
time when the violin had received its finishing touches at the hands
of the later Amati and Antonio Stradivarius. The first great violin
virtuoso, Archangelo Corelli, had published his epoch-marking works
during the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Scarlatti appears
to have entered into the new musical world thus opened with ever fresh
enjoyment and a rare intelligence. Fétis says that in "Laodicea e
Berenice" (1701) he wrote an air with obbligato for violin and 'cello,
the former having been intended for Corelli; but upon its proving
impossible to secure Corelli, the air had to be given up because there
was no violinist sufficiently skilled to play it.
In "Tigrane" (1715) the orchestra consisted of violins, violas, 'celli,
basses, two horns, two oboes, which was an unprecedented number at that
time. In "La Caduta de Decemviri" (1706) the air _Ma, il ben mio che
fa_ was accompanied by violins in four parts, with admirable effect.
Obbligato solos are also frequent.
Scarlatti also made a mark as teacher of singing. By many he is regarded
as the founder of the Italian art of singing. This may well enough have
been the case. A great singer himself, a fine musician in every respect,
and fully imbued with the concept of _cantabile_ melody, as shown in the
violin effects already mentioned as frequent in his operas, nothing
could be more natural than that he should put the two ideas together, and
seek to discover a method of training through which the human voice would
be capable of similarly noble effects, with the added element of inherent
vitality. According to tradition, he accomplished his task. At all events
it was his pupil, Nicolo Porpora, who brought the art of sustained song
to its highest perfection. Besides Porpora, who was perhaps his greatest
pupil (and his eminent son, Domenico Scarlatti, who was great composer as
well as virtuoso upon the clavier), the most celebrated of Scarlatti's
pupils were Logroscino, Durante, and Hasse.
Considering the importance of the period when Scarlatti flourished,
and his own prominence both in the eyes of his contemporaries and in
the history of art, it is surprising that his biography has never been
exhaustively written. Such a work, carried out in the spirit of Spitta's
"Bach," would amount to a history of the creation and growth of Italian
opera, and would be of vast interest.
[Illustration: W. S. B. Mathews]
[Illustration]
GIOVANNI BATTISTA PERGOLESE
The measure of a life is not its length, but its productiveness, and the
best of a life's work is in its quality, not its quantity. The history
of the fine arts is rich in the names of those who ended a great career
before they had rounded out two score years, and many of the world's
triumphs in the open conflicts of battle on land or sea and of labor in
the struggles of peaceful times were won by men who had not long left
their boyhood behind them.
Eminent among these young men, whose work and fame are to be permanently
preserved and esteemed, is Giovanni Battista Pergolese, the span of whose
life hardly exceeded a quarter of a century, and the number of whose
compositions appears small in proportion to the influence he exerted and
the new impulse he imparted to the musical world a hundred and fifty
years ago.
Yet during his lifetime he was unappreciated and unsuccessful, and was
a person of so little consequence that many details of his history are
difficult to discover, while others which might now be interesting and
instructive, are absolutely unknown. The very year and place of his birth
are disputed. Some authorities claim that he was born in 1704 at Casoria,
in the immediate vicinity of Naples; but the best are agreed upon the
date of January 3, 1710, and name Jesi, a small town near Ancona, as the
place. On the other hand, Fétis, after much examination, comes to the
conclusion that he was born at Pergola, a town near Urbino,--whence his
surname of Pergolese, his family name being Jesi--and sets down that the
year was 1707. On this point he is evidently wrong, as he would thus make
the composer older by three years at the time of his death than he is
generally stated to have been.
Of his boyhood nothing is known, but he must have shown in an unusual
degree the musical talent so common in Italy, because he is found at
about ten years of age as a charity student in Naples, and under the
protection of the Duke of Maddaloni and Prince of Stigliano, the latter
being first equerry to to the King of Naples. Here again accounts
differ. On the one hand it is claimed that the boy was received into
the Conservatory Dei Poveri di Gesú Cristo, while on the other it is
argued with much probability that he was taught at San Onofrio. If the
latter be accepted as the truth, the contradiction can be explained by
the fact that his teacher, Gaetano Greco, was originally at the former
institution, but spent his later years in connection with the latter.
As the lad showed small aptitude for vocal music, he was first set to
learn the violin of Domenico Mattei, who soon discovering the nature
of his talent, sent him to Greco. This eminent master, himself a
distinguished pupil of the great Alessandro Scarlatti, found Pergolese
to be well worth cultivating and devoted himself to him with loving
care. But in about two years Greco died, and Pergolese then received
instruction from Durante, the famous master of counterpoint, whose
methods are still followed in the royal conservatory at Naples, and
from Feo. During this period his attention was concentrated upon the
science of music and composition, and it is recorded that by the time
he was fourteen years old, he had written some things of considerable
consequence.
The effect of his training in the reserved, scholastic and almost
conventional Neapolitan methods and of the influence about him was
naturally such as to render his style severe, classic and almost formal;
but no such limitation could be set to the expansion of his spirit, and
no sooner was he free from academic constraint and ready to choose his
own way in the world, than he began to express himself more vividly and
to turn toward the theatre as his true field. His first composition was,
so to speak, a compromise between the lessoning of the past and his
ambitions for the future, for it was a drama with a flavor of oratorio.
It was called "San Guglielmo d' Aquitania," and was produced at the
Fiorentini, which stood in the second rank of Neapolitan theatres, and
was not then, as subsequently, confined to the representation of comedy.
The opera had only a qualified success with the public, being judged to
have too much science and too little melody; but it sufficed to make his
talent evident to his noble patrons, who then exerted their influence
to get him hearings at other theatres. Thus encouraged, he wrote
"Sallustia," an opera-buffa; "Amor fa l'Uomo Cieco," an _intermezzo_, at
the suggestion of the Prince of Stigliano; and "Ricimero," a grand opera.
These were performed at San Bartolomeo and other secondary theatres, and
were all failures.
[Illustration: PERGOLESE.
Reproduction of a rare print from the British Museum.]
Disappointed and almost disheartened, Pergolese decided to give up the
stage, and for two years he devoted himself to instrumental music,
composing about thirty trios for strings, chiefly for the Prince of
Stigliano and other friends. But his disposition was not to be longer
controlled, and in 1731 he produced "La Serva Padrona," a light opera
which made an instant success and has attained a justly high reputation
all the world over. Being in the vein again, he followed this with
"Il Maestro di Musica," "Il Geloso Schernito," "Lo Frate Innamorato,"
"Livietta e Tracolo," "Il Prigioniero Superbo" and "La Contadina Astuta."
These were mostly composed upon Neapolitan texts, were full of gaiety
and brightness, and had temporary success in the San Bartolomeo, the
Nuovo and other theatres; but their local dialect and the fact that
they belonged to the less important classes of opera, prevented their
obtaining any wide currency.
In May, 1734, Pergolese was called to Rome to become the chapel-master
of the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. Regarding this nomination as a
promotion in his art as well as a recognition of his ability, he set
himself seriously to work upon something which should at once confirm any
good opinion of his powers and demonstrate his gratitude. Putting aside
the trivial Neapolitan _libretti_, he turned to Metastasio and drew from
his poetry the text for his "Olimpiade," a grand opera which was brought
out in 1735 at the Tordinona. At this time the composer Duni--of whom
little more than the name now remains--was a composer much in favor,
and was about to bring out a new work of his own, "Nero." He had no
small fear of what Pergolese might do and withheld his score until he
could make acquaintance with that of the new comer. His opinion, written
directly to Pergolese, with many expressions of admiration, included
these words: "There are here too many details beyond the reach of the
average public; they will pass unperceived, and you will not succeed.
My opera will not have the value of yours; but, being more simple, it
will be more fortunate." Duni was right; the "Olimpiade" was a failure;
some parts of it were hissed,--although it was admitted that two airs
and one duet were "deeply expressive,"--and one chronicler records that
some irate auditor went so far as to throw an orange at the head of the
composer as he sat at the harpsichord in the orchestra. The generous
spirited Duni afterwards said that he was "in a fury" against the Roman
public for its behavior toward his contemporary.
This defeat was a decisive one, and Pergolese turned back to his duties
as a composer and director of religious music. The ensuing period was
signalized by his writing, among other things, of a mass, a _Dixit_ and a
_Laudate_, all upon a commission from the Duke of Maddaloni, who desired
them for the annual festival at the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, at
Rome, where they were sung with great éclat.
[Illustration: Reproduction of a fine medal by T. Mercandetti, struck
in 1806 (after the death of Pergolese), in commemoration of his "Stabat
Mater."]
The end of Pergolese's career was now approaching. For about four years
he had had frequent hemorrhages and had shown other signs of pulmonary
consumption. Beside having within it the germs of this fatal disease, his
constitution had been sapped and weakened by dissipation, and what one of
his biographers calls squarely his "_passion effrénée pour les femmes_."
To save what strength and life he still had, it was necessary that he
should leave Rome for a less trying climate, and he determined to return
to the softer and more salubrious air of Naples. One writer says that he
betook himself to a property belonging to the Duke of Maddaloni, at Torre
del Greco, just at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, where the sunny exposure
and the protection of the volcano from the winds of the north are thought
to be extremely propitious to such invalids as he. But this stay can have
been only temporary, because his final residence is known to have been in
a villa at Pozzuoli, which is quite on the other side of Naples and is to
be accounted a no less salubrious place of sojourn, having been sought
for sanitary reasons by the old Romans.
Pergolese was hardly fit to do any work in these days, but he had
accepted a commission from the confraternity of San Luigi di Palazzo,
in Rome, and was determined to execute it. The subject was a "Salve
Regina," and he was to receive for it the munificent sum of ten
ducats--equivalent, perhaps, to about eight dollars of the present
currency. Like Mozart, laboring over this "Requiem," Pergolese gave
his last thought and his last strength to this anthem, and had hardly
completed it when, on the 16th of March, 1736. he died. There were
rumors at the time, which even had some currency years later, that he
had been poisoned, the isolation of his retreat and the peculiarity of
some of his symptoms suggesting the possibility of this. But, apart from
the fact that his physical condition and his known habits explained his
maladies and their inevitable termination, Pergolese was not a figure of
sufficient importance to excite jealousy or animosity. His life had not
been a public one in the full sense of the word, and in the lyric drama,
where he desired most to shine, he had made but one real success--that of
"La Serva Padrona."