Baroque Music - Composers

Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti

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Alessandro
- (1659-1725).
Italian composer, who helped to establish the Neapolitan style of opera that dominated 18th-century music. Born in Palermo, Sicily, he was probably trained in Rome under the Italian oratorio composer Giacomo Carissimi. His earliest known opera, L'errore innocente, was produced in Rome in 1679. In 1684 a more important work, Pompeo, was performed in Naples, and Scarlatti was appointed musical director at the Neapolitan court. In 1702-3 he lived in Florence under the patronage of Ferdinand de Medici. Scarlatti was assistant choirmaster at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome from 1703 to 1713. He reestablished himself in Naples in 1713, becoming musical director of the Austrian viceroy, and director of the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio. From 1719 to 1723 he worked in Rome. He then returned to Naples and lived there until his death.

Scarlatti was one of the first opera composers to strongly differentiate the singing styles of aria and recitative. His opera overtures established the Neapolitan overture type, which has three movements, in fast, slow, and fast tempos. His cantatas, numbering more than 600, introduced many advanced harmonic procedures to the musical vocabulary of the time.

Domenico
- (1685-1757).
Italian harpsichordist and composer, born in Naples. He studied first with his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, and later with the Italian composer Francesco Gasparini. Scarlatti first attracted attention by his revision (1704) of the opera Irene by the Italian composer Carlo Francesco Pollarolo. In subsequent years Scarlatti lived in Rome, Naples, and Lisbon and frequently toured Europe as a traveling virtuoso. In 1729 he was summoned to the Spanish court at Madrid, which remained his residence for the rest of his life.

Scarlatti was a founder of the modern school of keyboard technique; he was the first composer to call for such devices in performance as arpeggios, the rapid repetition of a single note, and the crossing of hands. His keyboard compositions, entitled sonatas, are all short pieces. About 550 of these have been preserved; many have a recognizable Spanish flavor. Scarlatti also composed several operas, religious music, and instrumental works.

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