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Scan 141
Cyclopedia of music and musicians, 1888
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1PERGOLESI
3lontcello, and bass, dedicated to the Prince of Stegliano. In the winter of 1731 the world-famous La serva padrona, was written and produced. Its success at first was not overwhelming, but it was the only genuine success Pergolesi had during his lifetime. Several other operas followed it, but they were all regarded by the public as failures. In 1734 he went to Loreto as maestro di cappella. After the failure of a new opera, Flaminio (1735), the Confraternity of San Luigi di Palazzo, who had for years been in the habit of giving Alessandro Scarlatti's Stabat Mater on every Friday in March, ordered a new one of Pergolesi for ten ducats (about $8.75). He immediately set to work, but was soon called off to Rome to write an opera for the Teatro Tordinone. His fame, which was now spreading beyond Naples, seems to have been almost wholly due to the high esteem in which contemporary musicians held his works, for the public almost ignored them. But at Rome L'Olimpiade failed with a crash, while Duni's Nerone (a far inferior work, as its composer admitted) made a resounding success. Pergolesi returned to Loreto, in disgust with the stage, and resumed work on the Stabat Mater. But his health, which had long been undermined by excesses of the gallant sort, now gave way, and consumption declared itself. He moved to Pozzuoli, near Naples, and, although really far too ill to work, he persisted in composing a cantata, Orfeo e Euridice, a Salve Regina, and in finishing the Stabat Mater, in spite of the urgent entreaties of his old master Feo, who counselled rest. He died a few days after the completion of the Stabat. He was buried in the precincts of the Pozzuoli Cathedral, where, a century later, the Marquis de Villarosa and the Cavaliere Corigliano raised a monument to his memory. His death was an almost immediate signal for a boundless enthusiasm for his works all over Italy, and twenty-four years later in France. L'Olimpiade was revived at Rome with overwhelming success. Indeed, Pergolesi's high renown was entirely posthumous, a fact unparalleled in the annals of Italian music. Pergolesi is to be regarded as virtually the father of "modern" music in Italy—perhaps even in Europe. In his music the contrapuntal element steps for the first time definitely into the background, and the melodic-harmonic element asserts its supremacy. The step from Leo and Feo to Pergolesi is somewhat like that from the younger Bachs to Gluck and Haydn. Pergolesi's chief merits were great pathos, sweetness, and depth of expression. Of contrapuntal, or even melodic invention, he did not give surpassing evidence, but it should be remembered that he died at the age of twenty-six, and that there is no calculating the splendour of development which awaited his genius had he but lived longer. Although in originality of conception his works pale somewhat beside the more mature productions of other composers, if we compare them with what other great men had written before the age of twenty-six, we shall see that the comparison is rather in Pergolesi's favour than against him. In fact, his Serva padrona was the model of nearly all Italian opere buffe that followed it.
5Works—I. Operas: San Guglielmo d'Aquitania, Naples, 1731; La Sallustia, 3 acts, ib., 1731; Amor fa l'uomo cieco, 1 act, ib., 1731; Recimero, 3 acts, ib., 1731; La serva padrona, 2 acts, ib., Teatro San Bartolomeo, 1731, and Paris, Théâtre Italien, Oct. 4, 1746; Il maestro di musica, 2 acts, Naples, 1731; Il geloso schermito, ib., 1732; Lo frate innamorato, in Neapolitan dialect, ib., 1733; Il prigioniero superbo, 3 acts, ib., 1733; Adriano in Siria, ib., 1734; Livietta e Tracolo, ossia la contadina astuta, ib., 1734; Flaminio, 3 acts, ib., 1735; L'Olimpiade, 3 acts, Rome, 1735.
7II. Church music: Kyrie cum gloria, 4 voc., with orchestra (Vienna, Haslinger); Mass, 5 voc., with orch.; do. for two 5-part choruses and double orch.; Dixit, 4 voc., strings, and organ; do., double chorus and
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