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Scan 191
Grove's Dictionary of music and musicians, 1927
17 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 149. See the scan on archive.org.
1(altered by Bunn) as 'Stradella,' Drury Lane, June 6, 1846; in German, Drury Lane, May 21, 1849; in Italian, Covent Garden, 1864. (2) Opera in 5 acts, by Niedermeyer; produced Opéra, Mar. 3, 1837.
3STRADELLA, ALESSANDRO (b. circa 1645; d. 1682), Italian composer. The place of birth is uncertain; Genoa (Arteaga) and Venice (Carrier) are unlikely. Naples (Burney and, following him, Fétis and Riemann) is more generally accepted. Hess makes out a very fair case for the province of Modena, probably Vignola or Montefestino. Stradella's father, Marcantonio, was governor of Vignola for Prince Boncompagni in 1642, and at the siege of the town by the Papal troops in 1643 is said to have retreated to Montefestino. Rumour has it that Marcantonio Stradella evacuated Vignola after an insufficient defence, and when help was practically in sight. This point is worth mentioning, if only as a faint sign of a possibly weakening hereditary influence. Of Stradella's mother nothing is known. The date of Alessandro's death (1682) is obtained from a document in the archives at Modena quoted by Hess, who thus corrects the early authorities. (Bourdelot has 1670 and Burney 1678, both palpably in error, seeing that the score of 'Il barcheggio' is dated 1681, that work having been commanded for a wedding ceremony on July 6 of that year.) Hess's Modena document also corrects the date 1681 which had been accepted by Adler, Riemann, Combarieu and others.
5The true facts of Stradella's life are in part unknown and for the rest so overlaid with legend and conjecture as to be equally problematical. The truth, were it discoverable, would probably be stranger than any of the fictions which at present abound with regard to this musician's life. The earliest authority is Bourdelot,1 and from him there starts the fictive account of the happenings that befell Stradella. The tale which until recently has obtained credence is that Stradella went to Venice, where he taught and composed. Here he fell in love with the mistress of a Venetian nobleman and eloped with her to Rome (via Naples, according to Burney, whose statement lacks further verification). In Rome he first encountered the assassins who had been set on his path by the enraged Venetian nobleman. These ruffians are said not only to have desisted from their monstrous intent, after having their hearts melted by the exquisite strains of Stradella's oratorio 'S. Giovanni Battista' in the church of S. Giovanni Lateran, but to have warned the two young people of the danger threatening them. At this point, with evident art, the tale breaks off. Little more is told. We hear that Stradella and his lady fled there and then to Turin, where, 'about 1670,' the musician was finally run to earth and murdered by a fresh band of hirelings. Thus far Bourdelot. Burney follows him except for the one point mentioned above and for the fact of Stradella's death being placed in 1678, a statement which Burney was able to uphold by the possession of the score of an opera, 'La forza d'amore' (since lost), dated Genoa, 1678, and which Burney takes to be Stradella's last composition. Fétis follows Burney in the main details. Since then the dated score of 'Il barcheggio' lengthens Stradella's life up to 1681, and, as has been noted, the latest research puts his death early in 1682.
7Heinz Hess, in his Die Opern Alessandro Stradellas, has gathered together the conflicting versions of the musician's life and sifted the evidence. His is the most complete and reliable account, and from his book the following is taken. Stradella's position in Venice (it is not known in what year he went there) was that of a teacher of singing, not, as Bourdelot says, composer of operas commissioned by the Republic. Burney (General History) says that Stradella 'was not only an excellent composer but a great performer on the violin and, besides these qualifications, was possessed of a fine voice and an exquisite manner of singing.' The lady with whom Stradella eloped, generally called Ortensia, was not2 the mistress of the Venetian nobleman Pignaver, but 'una giovane patrizia destinata sposa' of the Venetian senator Alvise Contarini.3 The flight to Rome is not vouched for by any contemporary document. It is possible that Stradella visited Rome from Venice and returned thither to embark on his love affair. (The couple may, in that case, have fled straight to Turin, where, according to contemporary documents, an abortive attempt at the assassination of Stradella was carried out.4) This assumption still leaves room for a second visit to Rome, this time with his lady, where the first attempt at assassination may have taken place. It seems that Stradella entered into service as a court musician under the Regent Marie de Nemours, Duchess of Savoy, in Turin. It is not related definitely whether he married Ortensia. From a document in the archives of Modena,5 his death in 1682 at Genoa is placed beyond doubt. Another document from the same source mentions a son.
9Of Stradella's musical education nothing is known. The dates of his compositions are equally undiscoverable. Larousse6 mentions, without giving sources, the performances of operas in Venice between 1665 and 1668. Cesti's 'Dori' is dated 1672, and to this work Stradella wrote a Prologue. The score of 'S. Giovanni Battista' bears the date 1676. Burney says that his copy of 'La forza d'amore'
111 Histoire de la musique et de ses effets.
122 According to Bourdelot.
133 Carutti, Storia della diplomazia della corte di Savoia. (Rome, 1875.)
144 Hess, p. 6.
155 Ibid. p. 9.
166 Dictionnaire des opéras.
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