Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

This article is about the composer. For the 18th-century decorative artist, see Michael Angelo Pergolesi.

Two caricatures by Pier Leone Ghezzi
("the only extant authentic portraits")[1]
"Pergolese music composer who came to Rome on 20 May 1734"
(The British Museum)
"Signor Pergolese, Neapolitan music composer, who is clever indeed and died in Naples on 7 February 1736, and had suffered greatly with his left leg which made him walk with a limp)."[4]
(Vatican Apostolic Library)
The two caricature sketches by Pier Leone Ghezzi (the latter evidently derived from the former) are "the only two authentic portraits of the musician that have come down to us. The marked features of the face are very far from subsequent idealizations: pronounced deformity[2] of the left leg is also shown, a sign of probable previous poliomyelitis [...]".[3]

Giovanni Battista Draghi (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista ˈdraːɡi]; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), usually referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian: [perɡoˈleːzi; -eːsi]), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th century and one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan school.

Despite his short life and few years of activity (he died of tuberculosis at the age of 26), he managed to create works of high artistic value and historical importance, among which we remember La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress), of the highest importance for the development and diffusion of the opera buffa in Europe, L'Olimpiade, considered one of the masterpieces of the opera seria of the first half of the eighteenth century,[5] and the Stabat Mater, among the most important works of sacred music of all time.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ Toscani, Claudio (2015). "PERGOLESI, Giovanni Battista". Dizionario biografico degli italiani (in Italian). Rome: Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana. Volume 82. Retrieved 10 August 2023.
  2. ^ In Italian "anchilosi" (ankylosis), not used in a technical sense.
  3. ^ Dorsi, Fabrizio; Rausa, Giuseppe (2000). Storia dell'opera italiana (in Italian). Turin: Bruno Mondadori. pp. 126–127. ISBN 88-424-9408-9.
  4. ^ Carrozzo, Mario; Cimagalli, Cristina (2001). Storia della musica occidentale (in Italian). Vol. II: Dal Barocco al Classicismo viennese. Rome: Armando. p. 326. ISBN 9788860811066.
  5. ^ "...one of the finest opere serie of the early eighteenth century": Donald Jay Grout e Hermine Weigel Williams, A Short History of Opera (quarta edizione), New York, Columbia University Press, 2003, p. 229, ISBN 978-0-231-11958-0.
  6. ^ Will, Richard (2004). "Pergolesi's Stabat Mater and the Politics of Feminine Virtue" (PDF). The Musical Quarterly. 87 (3): 570–614. doi:10.1093/musqtl/gdh021. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 June 2010. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
  7. ^ Steinberg, Michael (2006). Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford University Press, USA. p. 115. ISBN 9780198029212.
  8. ^ Brook, Barry S. (1983). Pergolesi: research, publication and performance. The present state of studies on Pergolesi and his times. November 18–19, 1983, Jesi, Italy. ISBN 9780918728791.