Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736) was an Italian


, violin

ist and organist
Organ (music)



Born at Iesi, Pergolesi studied music


 in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco
Gaetano Greco
- External links :...

 and Francesco Feo
Francesco Feo
Francesco Feo was an Italian composer, known chiefly for his operas. He was born and died in Naples, where most of his operas were premièred.-Life:...


Pergolesi was one of the most important early composers of opera buffa
Opera buffa
Opera buffa is a genre of opera. It was first used as an informal description of Italian comic operas variously classified by their authors as ‘commedia in musica’, ‘commedia per musica’, ‘dramma bernesco’, ‘dramma comico’, ‘divertimento giocoso' etc...

(comic opera). His opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...

, Il prigionier superbo
Il prigionier superbo
Il prigionier superbo is an opera seria in three acts composed by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a libretto attributed to Gennaro Antonio Federico and based on an earlier libretto by Francesco Silvani for Gasparini's opera, La fede tradita e vendicata...

, contained the two act buffa intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...

, La Serva Padrona
La serva padrona
La serva padrona is an opera buffa by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi to a libretto by Gennaro Antonio Federico, after the play by Jacopo Angello Nelli. The opera is only 45 minutes long and was originally performed as an intermezzo between the acts of a larger serious opera...


Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in...

 and Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau


Lo frate 'nnamorato
Lo frate 'nnamorato is a three act commedia musicale by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, to a libretto by Gennarantonio Federico, first performed in 1732.-Composition history:...

(The monk in love, 1732, to a text in Neapolitan
Neapolitan may refer to:* Neapolitan, of or pertaining to the city of Naples, Italy and sometimes its wider Duchy or Province of Naples** Previously a nationality, during the time of the Kingdom of Naples or the Neapolitan Republics* Neapolitan cuisine...

 language), L'Olimpiade (January 31, 1735) and Il Flaminio (1735). All his operas were premiered in Naples, apart from L'Olimpiade, which was first given in Rome


Pergolesi also wrote sacred music, including a Mass
Mass (music)

Stabat Mater
Stabat Mater is a 13th-century Roman Catholic hymn to Mary. It has been variously attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone da Todi and to Innocent III...

 (1736), however, for male soprano

, male alto, string orchestra
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...

 and basso continuo, which is his best known sacred work. It was commissioned by the Confraternità dei Cavalieri di San Luigi di Palazzo. It has erroneously been said that it was commissioned by an order of monks. Rather, a group of pious and charitable gentlemen, such as existed in cities all over Italy, commissioned the work. It was this group that presented an annual Good Friday meditation in honor of the Virgin Mary; Pergolesi's work replaced one composed for the same forces by Alessandro Scarlatti
Alessandro Scarlatti


Whilst classical in scope, the opening section of the setting demonstrates Pergolesi's mastery of the Italian baroque 'durezze e ligature' style, characterized by numerous suspensions over a faster, conjunct bassline. The work remained popular, becoming the most frequently printed work of the 18th century, and being arranged by a number of other composers, including Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach

, who used it as the basis for his cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden
Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083
Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden, BWV 1083, is a cantata written by the composer Johann Sebastian Bach.-Instrumentation:The instruments required for this piece are soprano, alto, concertante violins, ripieno violins, viola, and basso continuo.-Origin:...

(Root out my sins, Highest One), BWV
The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis is the numbering system identifying compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. The prefix BWV, followed by the work's number, is the shorthand identification for Bach's compositions...


Violin sonata
A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, which is nearly always accompanied by a piano or other keyboard instrument, or by figured bass in the Baroque period.-A:*Ella Adayevskaya**Sonata Greca for Violin or Clarinet and Piano...

 and a violin concerto
Violin concerto
A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day...

Igor Stravinsky

's ballet

Pulcinella (ballet)

, which ostensibly reworks pieces by Pergolesi, is actually based on spurious works. The Concerti Armonici are now known to have been composed by Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer
Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer
Unico Willem van Wassenaer, Count of the Empire, was a Dutch diplomat and composer....

. Many colorful anecdotes related by his early biographer, Florimo, were later revealed as fabrication, though they furnished material for two nineteenth-century operas broadly based on Pergolesi's career.

Pergolesi died at the age of twenty-six in Pozzuoli
Pozzuoli is a city and comune of the province of Naples, in the Italian region of Campania. It is the main city of the Phlegrean peninsula.-History:Pozzuoli began as the Greek colony of Dicaearchia...

 from tuberculosis


External links
