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• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1760–1801, Austrian Katharina Cavalieri, the Austrian soprano, was both the student and the mistress of the court composer Antonio Salieri. In 1775, when she was 15, she made her debut in Vienna in the role of Sandrina in La finta giardiniera by Pasquale Anfossi (1727–97). Her voice was expressive and ‘full’, and she possessed a first-class ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Baroque

(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 ...

• Personalities
• Early & Middle Baroque
• Opera

c. 1550–1602, Italian Emilio de’ Cavalieri – composer, teacher, dancer and organist – was born in Rome. At the de’ Medici court in Florence, he organized the family’s spectacular celebrations and was also involved with the innovative Camerata group and their experiments into the stile rappresentativo (representative style). In 1589, Cavalieri contributed madrigals and concluding music ...

• Major Operas
• Early & Middle Baroque
• Opera

‘The Story of the Soul and the Body’ Premiered: 1600, Rome Libretto by Agostino Manni and Dorisio Isorelli Prologue The figures of Avveduto and Prudenzio (both mean ‘Prudence’) discuss at length the various facets of human nature and appeal to the audience to learn from what they will see in this allegorical opera. Act I The character Tempo (Time) presents ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1714–95, Italian Calzabigi was best known for three libretti for Gluck – Orfeo ed Euridice, Alceste and Paride ed Elena, the last taking its eponymous characters, Paris and Helen, from the ancient Greek story of the Trojan War. In these libretti, Calzabigi moved away from the artificiality and limited conventions of opera seria, preferring ...

• Influences
• Classical
• Classical Era

The reputation that Paris enjoyed for elegance and culture also attracted many foreign visitors to the city, who carried the French style to their own countries. While Italian opera was occasionally performed, French-language serious and comic opera predominated. The city’s most famous concert series was the Concert Spirituel, founded by Anne-Danican Philidor (1681–1728) in 1725. By the middle ...

• Classical
• Early Baroque

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 ...

• Personalities
• Early & Middle Baroque
• Opera

1660–1744, French Born in Aix-en-Provence, Campra became a church musician in Arles and Toulouse, and composed sacred music that was much admired. In 1694, Campra moved to Paris to become master of music at the cathedral of Nôtre Dame. Three years later, he produced his opéra-ballet, L’Europe galante (1697). With this work, Campra was ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Early Baroque

(Ja’-ko-mo Ka-res’-se-me) 1605–74 Italian composer Carissimi was the most important composer of oratorios of his time. He was born in Rome where, in about 1630, he became maestro di cappella at Sant’Apollinare, the church of the Jesuit Collegio Germanico, renowned for its musical tradition. Carissimi composed masses and motets, but is chiefly admired for his cantatas and ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Early Baroque

Perhaps the most important developments in music around the year 1600 were the emergence of the basso continuo and the fashion for virtuosity. The presence of an independent bass line moved composition away from the flowing polyphony of the Renaissance, in which all voices played an equal role in the texture, leaving the upper voices free to indulge in ...