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Scan 140
Cyclopedia of music and musicians, 1888
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1ranks his compositions next to those of Jommelli. Works—Operas: L' eroismo di Scipione, Palermo, 1741; Astartea, Medea, L' isola incantata (Palermo), La clemenza di Tito, Naples, 1749; Semiramide, Rome, 1750; Farnace, ib.; Merope, Genoa, 1751; Didone abbandonata, ib.; Alessandro nell' Indie, ib.; Zenobia, Turin, 1751; Demetrio, ib., 1752; Demofoonte, ib.; Artaserse, Adriano in Siria, ib., 1755; L' eroe cinese, ib., 1753; Ipermnestra, ib., 1754; Olimpiade, ib.; Ezio, London, 1755; Solimanno, Lisbon, 1757; Enea in Italia, 1759; Giulio Cesare, 1762. A fine edition of his Matutini de' morti, his best sacred work, was published while he was in London. Other church music: Mass for 8 voices and orchestra; do. for 5 voices and orchestra; Motets for 4 voices; 2 Salve Regina for do.; Responses for do.; Psalms for 3 voices and chorus.—Grove; Fétis; Burney, Hist., iv. 570; Mendel; Schilling; Gerber; Hogarth, Mus. Hist., i. 225.
3PERFALL, KARL, Freiherr VON, born in Munich, Jan. 29, 1824, still living, 1890. Dramatic composer, pupil of Hauptmann at Leipsic (1848); left the government service in 1850, and assumed the direction of the Münchener Liedertafel. In 1854 he founded the Oratorio Society, which he conducted until 1864, when he was appointed court music intendant. In 1867 he became intendant of the royal theatre, in which position he has made the Munich opera one of the most prominent. Works—Operas: Sakuntala, Munich, 1853; Das Konterfei, ib., 1863; Raimondin (also as Melusine), ib., 1881; Junker Heinz, ib., 1886; Barbarossa, melodrama; Dornröschen, Märchen for soli, chorus, and orchestra; Undine, do.; Rübezahl, do.—Riemann.
5PERGOLESI (Pergolese), GIOVANNI BATTISTA, born at Jesi, Roman States, Jan. 3, 1710, died at Pozzuoli, March 16, 1736. Dramatic composer, pupil, when very young, at the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo, Naples, on the violin of Domenico de Matteis. He soon attracted notice at the conservatory by the curious and unheard-of passages he improvised while practising, chromatic progressions based upon harmonic successions being then unknown. Such seemed to be his originality, that he was placed under Gaetano Greco to study counterpoint (harmony having hardly risen to the dignity of a separate study at that time); he continued his contrapuntal studies for a while under Durante, and then under Francesco Feo. He made rapid progress, but soon formed a style of his own, retaining only as much of the contrapuntal science he had learned as could be subordinated to melodious and expressive writing. His first composition worthy of the name was an oratorio, La conversione di San Guglielmo, which was given (with comic interludes) at the cloister of S. Agnello in 1731, before Pergolesi had left the conservatory. After leaving the conservatory he studied vocal composition under Vinci, and possibly also under Hasse. His first opera, La Sallustia, was given in 1731, but had no more than a succès d'estime. Two other operas also failed, and starvation would probably have been his fate had not the Prince of Stegliano, first equerry to the King of Naples, taken an active interest in him and helped him to get work. After a great earthquake in Naples, a solemn mass was voted to the patron saint of the city, and Pergolesi was commissioned to write the music. He accordingly wrote a mass and vespers for ten-part chorus and double orchestra, which was soon followed by a second mass for double chorus and two orchestras (to which the composer afterwards added parts for two more choruses), which was much admired by Leo. About this time Pergolesi wrote also thirty trios for two violins, vio-
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