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Updated: June 13, 2025
Purcell, in England, Domenico Scarlatti and Sammartini, in Italy, the Bachs, in Germany, and others continued to fashion the sonata form. It ceased to be a mere grouping of dances, the name suite being applied to that, and struck out into independent excursions in the domain of fancy.
So he put his overcoat over his knee, and studied some music he had bought in Milan: some Pergolesi and the Scarlatti he liked, and some Corelli. He preferred frail, sensitive, abstract music, with not much feeling in it, but a certain limpidity and purity. Night fell as he sat reading the scores. He would have liked to try certain pieces on his flute.
It was to Purcell, and to some extent to Scarlatti too, that Handel owed the general plan of the anthems with their orchestral accompaniments, but even Purcell's anthems with orchestra had by that time been found too elaborate for general use. To the Chandos period belongs also a work which is still one of Handel's most popular compositions, the English Acis and Galatea, to words by John Gay.
To make matters worse, Corelli made an unfortunate mistake in the next piece, which was written in the key of C minor, and led off in C major. The mistake was repeated, and Scarlatti had to call out to him to set him right. His mortification was so great that he quietly left Naples and returned to Rome.
Italy introduced him to an entirely different atmosphere to a life of dignity and serenity in which a classical culture, both literary and artistic, was the matured fruit of wealth, leisure, and good breeding. That exquisite life found its highest musical expression in Alessandro Scarlatti, who at that period was incontestably the greatest of living musicians.
It was in July 1708 that the Austrian Viceroy of Naples, Count Daun, was succeeded by Cardinal Grimani, who, towards the end of the year, persuaded Alessandro Scarlatti to return to the service of the royal chapel.
It was followed by a series of Italian operas composed by Buononcini, Scarlatti, and others; at first the operas were in English, and sung by English singers, but gradually Italian was introduced, as at Hamburg, and in 1710 an opera called Almahide, the music of which Burney ascribes conjecturally to Buononcini, was given in Italian with an entirely Italian company.
He had indeed composed an opera himself, which was performed in 1692, but he was more competent as a poet than as a musician; in 1690 Alessandro Scarlatti had set a libretto of his, La Statira. Handel was no doubt recommended to him by Ferdinand de' Medici, and at the Cardinal's weekly musical parties he soon came into contact with Domenico Scarlatti, as well as with Corelli and Pasquini.
The invention of the da capo is generally attributed to Scarlatti, wrongly, as has already been shown, since it appears in Cesti's opera 'La Dori, which was performed in 1663.
If "Les Miserables" is included in the list, what are we to say to Huysmans' "La Bas"? Just such a question I should like to propound, substituting sonata for novel. If Scarlatti wrote sonatas, what is the Appassionata? If the A flat Weber is one, can the F minor Brahms be called a sonata? Is the Haydn form orthodox and the Schumann heterodox? These be enigmas to make weary the formalists.
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