AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Baroque
• Satirist

(Ba-na-dat’-to Mär-chel’-lo) 1686–1739 Italian composer and satirist Marcello was a Venetian nobleman and younger brother of the composer Alessandro Marcello (1669–1750). Benedetto trained as a lawyer and held various public positions in Venice, including those of chamberlain and governor. He was not dependent upon music for a living and con­sequently styled himself dilettante. His compositions included concertos, sonatas, sinfonias ...

• Personalities
• Late Baroque
• Opera

1697–1781, Italian Venetian mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni was brought up by the composers Alessandro (1669–1750) and Benedetto Marcello (1686–1739). She made her debut in Pollarolo’s Ariodante in 1716, and was based in her home city until 1725, singing in operas by her teacher Gasparini, as well as Albinoni and Lotti. Between 1726 and 1728, she performed in ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Instrumentalist
• Late Baroque

(Ma-ran’ Ma-ra’) 1656–1728 French composer and viol player Marais was a pupil of Sainte-Colombe (1691– 1701). He was associated with the Académie Royale de Musique and the French court for most of his life. Marais’ idiomatic and expressive viol playing won him European renown. Between 1686 and 1725 he published five collections of pièces de violes; the first was dedicated to Lully ...

• Houses & Companies
• Late Baroque
• Opera

Literary clubs that were established in seventeenth-century Italy were commonly known as ‘academies’, taking their name from the Athenian garden where Plato was thought to have met with his followers. One of the most important such groups in the early eighteenth century was the Roman ‘Arcadian Academy’. It was formally established in 1690 to honour the late Queen Christina of Sweden ...

• Houses & Companies
• Early & Middle Baroque
• Opera

When the Teatro San Cassiano, the first public opera house, opened in 1637, the Venetian nobility rapidly decamped from the private homes in which performances had previously been given and rented the best box seats for each opera season. The public had to make do with the lower parterre, or ‘pit’. The San Cassiano was built and ...

• Major Operas
• Early Romantic
• Opera

‘The Italian Girl in Algiers’ Despite its North African setting, Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri was a resolutely Italian opera. Unlike Aida (1871), in which Verdi took care to evoke the mysterious atmosphere of ancient Egypt, Rossini made no particular attempt to reflect the exotic nature of Algiers. However, given the good-natured harum-scarum fun of this two-act comic opera ...

• Major Operas
• Opera
• Turn of the Century

‘The Bohemian Life’ Puccini’s first work following the overwhelming triumph of Manon Lescaut was immediately beset by problems. Leoncavallo had already begun preparations on the same scenario and, on hearing of Puccini’s choice of subject, publicly berated his rival and friend and claimed priority over the project. Puccini responded calmly by declaring that both composers should go to work ...

• Personalities
• Early & Middle Baroque
• Opera

1567–1643, Italian Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi was born in Cremona and began his illustrious career as a choirboy in the town’s cathedral. By the time he was 20, he had already published the first of his eventual nine books of secular madrigals. He was also a skilled composer of motets. Monteverdi’s horizons expanded in 1591 when he joined the ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Baroque

1685–1759 English composer George Frideric Handel is one of the best known of all Baroque composers. His gift for melody, his instinctive sense of drama and vivid scene-painting, and the extraordinary range of human emotions explored in his vocal compositions make his music instantly accessible. Works such as Messiah (1741), Water Music (1717) and Music for the Royal Fireworks ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Late Baroque

In the late Baroque era music both consolidated earlier developments and looked forward to the new styles of the classical era. The output of the two greatest composers of the time, J. S. Bach and Handel, reflects the general trends in music. The main forms – notably the sonata, concerto and opera – became longer and more complex ...