SEARCH RESULTS FOR: Ferdinando Paer
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(Fâr-de-nan’-do Pa’-er) 1771–1839 Italian composer Paer was among the last of the group of Italian composers in demand as maestri di cappella, and together with Mayr dominated Italian opera in the first decade of the nineteenth century. He studied in Parma, but moved to Paris in 1807, when Napoleon, a great admirer of his work, appointed him ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1792–1868, Italian By the age of 14, Gioachino Rossini could play the violin, cello, harpsichord and horn, and had written a buffo-style cavatina, a short solo song. In 1806, Rossini was studying at the Bologna Conservatory and wrote his first opera, Demetrio e Polibio. The next year he produced his first professional work ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1770–1827, German Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn to a musical family, on 16 December 1770. He started composing at the age of 11 and experienced opera from the inside when he joined the Bonn court orchestra as a viola player in 1789. His letters reveal that from his early years in Vienna, where he moved in ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(O’-to Ne’-ko-li) 1810–49 German composer Nicolai studied in Berlin with Zelter, and in 1833 became organist at the embassy chapel in Rome, but he resigned in 1836 to pursue a career as an opera composer. He quickly found fame with Enrico II (‘Henry II’, 1839) and Il templario (The Templar’, 1840), and also made an impression as a conductor in ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The revival and imitation of ancient theatrical genres in sixteenth-century Italy bore fruit in seventeenth-century England and France in the works of the great dramatists of those countries: William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe, Pierre Corneille and Jean Racine. In Italy, however, the sixteenth-century innovations in spoken drama were followed in the next century not by a great national ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

The six intermedi composed to celebrate the marriage of Ferdinando de’ Medici of Florence and Christine of Lorraine in 1589 were the most spectacular and expensive ever seen. So lavish was the presentation that it completely dominated the play it accompanied – La pellegrina (‘The Pilgrim’) by Girolamo Bargagli. All the texts and music survive, together with the designs for ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Al-es-san’-dro Skär-lat’-te) 1660–1725 Italian composer Scarlatti was born in Sicily but spent most of his working life in Rome, where he studied, and in Naples. He made important and prolific contributions to the genres of opera, oratorio, serenata and cantata forms, composing a much smaller quantity of instrumental and keyboard music. His musical talent attracted the attention ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Do-man’-e-ko Skär-lat’-te) 1685–1757 Italian composer and harpsichordist Domenico Scarlatti was the son of Alessandro Scarlatti. He was born in Naples and lived there until 1704, when he joined his father in Rome. The following year he travelled to the cities of Florence and Venice; during his time in the latter he met the great composer of the era, Handel. Scarlatti ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(A-mel’-yo da Ka-val-ya’-re) c. 1550–1602 Italian composer Cavalieri was born in Rome and was a teacher, dancer and diplomat at the Medici court. In 1589 he organized the celebrated Florentine intermedi for the wedding of Grand Duke Ferdinando I and Christine of Lorraine. He was associated with the Florentine Camerata of Giovanni de’ Bardi, whose members experimented with musically continuous ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1574–1620, Italian Composer and tenor Francesco Rasi took part in the first performances of Peri’s Euridice and Caccini’s Rapimento di Cefalo in Florence in 1600. By then he was already an experienced and much-admired performer, after 10 years in the service of aristocratic patrons, including Duke Fernando I of Tuscany before 1594, and, after 1598 the ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

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 ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1685–1759, German Handel composed 42 operas between 1704 and 1740, but most of these were neglected and seldom performed after his lifetime. In the twentieth century, Handel’s music dramas and in particular his operas underwent a renaissance that has established him as the definitive theatre composer of the late Baroque period. Handel was a maverick composer who pursued ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

(Ja’-ko’mo Poot-che’-ne) 1858–1924 Italian composer Puccini wrote 12 operas, three of which rank among the most popular in the world: La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. The composer came from a long line of musicians. His great-great-grandfather, the first Giacomo Puccini (1712–81), was organist and choirmaster at the cathedral of S Martino in the Tuscan town of Lucca. His ...

Source: Classical Music Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1858–1924, Italian Puccini’s unerring instinct for strong melody and evocative harmony, coupled with his ability to bring to life passionate and sensual relationships, has made him one the most popular of opera composers. Puccini brought Italian opera into the twentieth century, synthesizing music and drama in a symphonic idiom, but retaining the voice as the focal ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie

1813–1901, Italian Giuseppe Verdi was that rarity, a modest, diffident genius. He was so unaware of his powers that he called himself ‘the least erudite among past and present composers’. Born in Le Roncole, near Busseto, Parma, Verdi was eight when his talents were noticed by a local merchant and patron of music, Antonio ...

Source: Definitive Opera Encyclopedia, founding editor Stanley Sadie
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