A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Scarlatti, Alessandro

by Franz Gehring

SCARLATTI, ALESSANDRO, a musician of great importance, and the creator of modern opera. Of his early life nothing is known beyond what may be gathered from his tombstone^[1] in the St. Cæcilia chapel of the Church of Monte Santo in Naples:

HEIC SITVS EST
EQVES ALEXANDER SCARLACTVS
VIR MODERATIONE BENEFICENTIA
PIETATE INSIGNIS
MVSICES INSTAVRATOR MAXIMVS
QVI SOLIDIS VETERVM NVMERIS
NOVA AC MIRA SVAVITATE
MOLLITIS
ANTIQVITATI GLORIAM POSTERITATI
IMITANDI SPEM ADEMIT
OPTIMATIBVS REGIBVSQ
APPRIME CARVS
TANDEM ANNOS NATVM LXVI EXTINXIT
SVMMO CVM ITALIAE DOLORE
IX KAL^AR NOVEMB^RIS CIↃIↃCCXXV
MORS MODIS FLECTI NESCIA

From a Maltese cross engraved at the foot of the inscription it may be supposed that he was a Knight of the order of Malta.

Since 'ix. Kal. Novembris CIↃIↃCCXXV' means Oct. 24, 1725, it follows that Scarlatti was born in 1659, and we learn from the score of 'Pompeo' (in the possession of Gaspare Selvaggio, and also verified by Florimo) that his birthplace was Trapani in Sicily. As to his musical education, some maintain, though without citing any authority, that he studied in Parma, while others declare that he was a pupil of Carissimi (born 1604) in Rome. The eminent antiquarian Villarosa ('Memorie dei compositori … del regno di Napoli') states (without quoting his authority) that when Scarlatti moved with his family to Naples he was a celebrated singer and player on the harp and harpsichord. The first ascertained fact in his life is that he was commissioned to compose for Christina, Queen of Sweden, an opera 'L' Onestà nell' amore' performed in 1680 at her palace in Rome, and it is a probable inference that he was even at that time a composer of some mark. Cramer's 'Musikalisches Magazin' (2nd year, 668) states that he composed an opera for Munich in the same year, an assertion which, like many others concerning Scarlatti, has been copied without verification from one book to another. Fétis doubted the fact, and it has been completely disproved by Rudhart ('Geschichte der Oper am Hofe zu München'). The court of Bavaria had at that time as representative in Rome an Abbé Scarlatti, whose name occurs frequently in the accounts as receiving large sums of money. At a brilliant fête given by this Abbé Scarlatti (Pére Ménétrier's 'Representations en musique,' 252) on Aug. 22, 1680, at the Vigna della Pariola near Rome, 'La Baviera trionfante, componimento per musica' was performed, a fact which has given rise to a series of misstatements, originating with Lipowsky, who in his 'National Garde Jahrbuch' (1814) cites the Abbé as Alessandro Scarlatti, and changes the locality to Munich, though he states in his 'Bayrisches Musiklexicon' that no opera of Scarlatti's was produced in Munich before 1721. 'Pompeo' was performed at the royal palace at Naples, Jan. 30, 1684 (Fétis's copy is dated 1683), and on the libretto Scarlatti is styled Maestro di capella to the Queen of Sweden. In 1693 he composed an oratorio 'I dolori di Maria sempre Vergine' for the Congregazione dei sette Dolori di San Luigi di Palazzo in Rome, and an opera, 'Teodora,'^[2] in which may be found many airs having the first part Da capo after the second, a practice logically and musically correct, and, according to Kiesewetter first brought into general use by Scarlatti, though instances of it do occur before his time. In 'Teodora' we find also the first orchestral ritornel, and the germ of the 'recitativo obligato,' with the entire orchestra employed to accompany the recitative. Violins, violas, and basses formed the groundwork of his orchestra, with oboes and flutes (seldom found together, though an instance occurs in 'Tigrane'), horns, bassoons, trumpets, and drums. Queen Christina died in 1688, and in 1694 Scarlatti was maestro di capella to the Viceroy of Naples, as we learn from the libretto of Legrenzi's opera 'Odoacre' to which Scarlatti added some songs for a performance at San Bartolomeo (Jan. 5, 1694) stating in the preface with commendable modesty that the airs thus added are distinguished by an asterisk, 'for fear of damaging Legrenzi's reputation, which was to him an object of boundless respect.' Other operas were 'Pirrho e Demetrio' (1697), 'Il Prigionero fortunato' (1698), and 'Laodicea e Berenice' (1701), which added enormously to his fame, and in which there was a tenor solo with an obligato violin accompaniment, played by Corelli, but with so little success that Scarlatti afterwards substituted another air for it. On Dec. 31, 1703, he became assistant maestro di capella to Antonio Foggia at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, and succeeded to the chief post May 1707. Cardinal Ottoboni also took him up, and made him his private maestro di capella, as we learn from the libretto of his 'Trionfo della Liberia' (Venice 1707). Soon after this he received the order of the Golden Spur.^[3] He resigned Santa Maria Maggiore in 1709, returned to Naples, and died Oct. 24, 1725.

Scarlatti's fertility was enormous. 'Tigrane' (1715) is called on the libretto his 106th opera, and there were in all 115, of which only 41 are extant, including, besides those already mentioned:—

Il Prigionero superbo (Naples); Equivoche nel sembiante; Eraclea (with all the instruments mentioned, except drums, 1700; score in the Fétis Collection, Brussels); Nozze col nemico; Mitridate; Il Figlio delle selve (1702); La Caduta dei Decemviri (1706); Il Medo (1708, much praised by Fétis); Martirio di Santa Cecilia (Rome) and Teodosio (Naples 1709); Giro riconosciuto (Rome 1712); Porsenna, with Lotti (San Bartolomeo, Naples, 1713); Scipione nelle Spagne, Amor generoso, and Arminio (Naples 1714); Carlo Re d'Allemania, and Virtu trionfante dell' odio e dell' amore (1716); Trionfo dell' Onore Fiorentini, and Telemacco (Naples and Rome 1718) interesting for its comic intermezzo in the Neapolitan dialect; Tersites; Attillo Regolo, and Cambisio (1719), also with comic intermezzo; Tito Sempronio Graccho, with ballets, and Turno Aricinio (1720); Principessa fedele, and Griselda (Rome 1721); Didone abbandonata(1721).

Undated: Amor volubile e tiranno (in the Paris Conservatoire), Olitorio; Massimo Puppieno; Non tutto male vien per nuocere, and Amazone guerriera (Monte Cassino); Diana ed Endimione; La Merope(Real Collegio, Naples).

No less prolific as a composer of church-music, he left over 200 masses, of which few have survived. Jommelli pronounced his masses and motets the best he knew in the concertante style, and Hauptmann^[4] in regard to them happily compares him and Palestrina as Virgil and Homer. His secular cantatas were equally numerous. Burney saw the original MSS. of 35, each composed in a single day during a visit at Tivoli in the autumn of 1704 to Andrea Adami (da Bolsena), then a well-known singer in the Pope's choir; and a Neapolitan amateur told Quantz in 1725 that he possessed 400. His other works were:—

Oratorios.—Dolori di Maria; Sacrifizio d'Abramo (Burney gives a Cavatina therefrom, History, iv. 121); Martirio di Santa Teodosia (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale); Concezzioni della beata Vergine; Sposa del sagri cantici; San Filippo di Neri (Rome 1718); Vergine addolorata (Naples 1722); Stabat Mater, à 4 (Rome 1723); ditto à 2; Passio sec. Johannem.

Church Music.—Several Masses in the archives of the Real Collegio, Naples, including one à 10 voci, for 2 choirs, violin, and organ. Also Concerti Sacri, for 1, 2, 8, and 4 voices (Roger. Amsterdam), now in the Fétis Collection; Psalms—'Ave Regina,' and 'Laudate,' once in Abbate Santini's possession; and a Miserere, composed for the Pope's Choir in 1680.

Secular Music.—Madrigals for various voices (Padre Martini gives one for 2 soprani and 2 contralti in his 'Esemplare di Contrapunto fugato'); Serenate à 4 for the baptism of the Prince of Sicily (1723, Monte Cassino); Duette (14 Nos.) and Cantatas (8 vols.) are in the Bibliothèque Nationale Paris.

[App. p.781 "To the list of works add the following, the MSS. of which are in the possession of the Earl of Aylesford:—Oratorios: 'Giuditta,' and 'S. Cecilia,' a 'Salve Regina' for chorus, and a cantata."]

Scarlatti became in process of time teacher at three of the Naples Conservatorios—San Onofrio, I Poveri, and Loreto. Among his numerous pupils were—Logroscino, Hasse, Leo, Durante, Carapello, Greco, Gizzi, Abos, Feo, Porpora, Sarri, and Contumacci.^[5] An idea of his skill in teaching may be gathered from a pamphlet, unfortunately circulated in MS. only, 'Discorso di musica sopra un caso particolare in arte del Sig. Cav. Alessandro Scarlatti, maestro della real capella di Napoli' (1717, 28 pp. folio with 17 of music), in which he gave judgment on a dispute referred to his arbitration, between two Spanish musicians about a striking dissonance employed by one of them.

Maier published (Schlesinger, Berlin) a comic duet from 'Laodicea e Berenice,' and, besides those already given there are at Monte Cassino 'Serenata à 3, Venere, Adoni, Amore'; Serenata à 3, with instruments, for the opening of a theatre at Posilippo (1696); 'Genio di Partenone' (Matteo Sassoni); 'Gloria di Sebeto' (Vittoria Bombare); 'Piacere di Mergellina' (Domenico l'Aquilano); 'Massimo Puppieno,' opera, 3 acts; 'Scipione nelle Spagne,' 1st act; and 'Porsenna' 2nd act, recitatives by Antonio Lotti. '36 Ariettas for a single voice, with a Thorough Bass for the Harpsichord,' were published in London about 1750.

Large portions of a mass by Scarlatti are given by Rochlitz in his 2nd vol. Another was printed entire by Proske (Ratisbon, 1841); a 'Lætatus' and an 'Exultate' are given in Proske's 'Musica Divina'; and a 'Tu es Petrus' for 8 voices (characterised by Hauptmann as 'very grand, as if hewn in stone') in Commer's 'Musica Sacra,' iii. 96. His instrumental music remains almost entirely unpublished. A Fugue in F minor is given by Pauer in his 'Alte Klaviermusik.'

His portrait, after Solimena, may be found in the 'Biographia degli Uomini illustri del Regno di Napoli' (1810).

[ F. G. ]

1. For a facsimile of this inscription, now first correctly published, and differing much from the transcriptions of Fétis, Villarosa, and Florimo, we are indebted to Dr. Dohrn, chief of the Royal Aquarium, Naples. We have also to thank Sig. Minervini, Mad. Zampini-salazaro, and Mr. Wreford for kind services in reference to it. [G.]
2. Abramo Basevi, of Florence, has a contemporaneous copy.
3. Also bestowed on Gluck and Mozart.
4. Letters to Hauser, i. 127.
5. Fétis calls Leo a pupil of Pitoni, an error corrected by Florimo.