Alessandro Scarlatti

Italian composer

• Born: May 2, 1660
• Birthplace: Palermo, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (now in Italy)
• Died: October 22, 1725
• Place of death: Naples (now in Italy)

Scarlatti was the outstanding Italian composer of operas and cantatas active in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. His work brought fame to Naples as a center for operatic composition and performance and provided the foundation for the Neapolitan school of composers.

Early Life

Alessandro Scarlatti (ah-lays-SAHN-droh skahr-LAHT-tee) was the second of eight children of Pietro Scarlata (or Sgarlata) and his wife, Eleanora d’Amato, and the eldest to survive infancy. Nothing is known of his childhood, although he may have studied music with the chapel master of Palermo Cathedral, Don Vincenzo Amato, a presumed relative of his mother. In June, 1672, at the age of twelve, he was sent to Rome with his two young sisters, Anna Maria and Melchiorra Brigida, presumably to live with relatives. Again, nothing is known of his education at Rome, although he may well have attended a choir school connected with one of the large churches or seminaries. Presumably he would have performed and heard the music of the older composers active or recently active in Rome, including Giacomo Carissimi (with whom he is traditionally held to have studied), Antonio Cesti, Alessandro Stradella, and Bernardo Pasquini.

Scarlatti seems to have acquired patrons among the Roman nobility at an early age, and by 1677 was composing a short opera, as yet unidentified, for an evening gathering in a private home. By this time, he must have been earning a living, for he was married on April 12, 1678, to Antonia Anzalone, a native of Rome whose family may also have come from Sicily. Scarlatti was then just short of his eighteenth birthday and prepared to launch his career as a composer. A portrait of Scarlatti painted by Lorenzo Vaccaro and probably dating from the 1680’s shows a young man very much of the seventeenth century, dressed in court finery, with a serious mien, an elongated face, a prominent nose, and penetrating eyes. When he was painted again by an unknown artist near the end of his life, in sober attire and wearing a cross, his face had rounded and his features softened, but the penetrating eyes remained. He seems to have been essentially a serious man, concerned equally with his own music and with the welfare of the large Scarlatti clan of which he had become head after the death of his father.

Life’s Work

The year 1679 marked the beginning of Scarlatti’s public career as a composer, although he had undoubtedly composed a number of cantatas and other smaller works as a student. Early in the year, the Arciconfraternita del San Crocifisso commissioned him to compose an oratorio, which was probably the one performed for them on February 24, 1679, but remains otherwise unidentified. His earliest known opera is the commedia in musica entitled Gli equivoci nel sembiante (1679; Equivocal Appearances: Or, Love Will Not Suffer Deceptions, 1975), which privately premiered in early 1679 because of the severe restrictions imposed upon public performances by the reform-minded Pope Innocent XI. The opera, which requires a cast of only four and limited staging, was an immediate success and was performed a number of times at Rome in 1679 and subsequently at Bologna, Naples, Monte Filottrano, Vienna, Ravenna, and Palermo.

Perhaps more important to Scarlatti, his first opera earned for him the patronage of Queen Christina of Sweden, living in Rome after her abdication from the Swedish throne and acting as one of the city’s major patrons of the arts. Scarlatti immediately became her chapel master and dedicated to her his next opera, L’honestà negli amori (1680). He also acquired other influential Roman patrons, foremost among them being Cardinals Benedetto Pamphili and Pietro Ottoboni, with whom he maintained contact even during his two separate stays at Naples from 1683 to 1702 and from 1709 to 1718. Between 1680 and 1683, Scarlatti wrote at least three more operas, six oratorios, and a number of cantatas for performance in Rome. He may also have been employed at one or more churches, including San Gerolamo della Carità. By 1681, the Scarlatti household consisted of the composer, his wife, two infant children, his sister-in-law, a nurse, and his younger brother Giuseppe.

Scarlatti was a successful young composer in the Rome of the early 1680’s, but he had already irritated papal authorities by participating in the annual attempts to bypass the pope’s regulations concerning operatic performances. It must have seemed both a political move and a good opportunity when in 1683 the marquis del Carpio, formerly Spanish ambassador to the Vatican and newly installed Spanish viceroy of Naples, invited Scarlatti to become his chapel master. Since Naples was then the most populous city in Italy and Sicily was also under Spanish control, Scarlatti may have believed that the new position would provide better opportunities both for himself as an opera composer and for the entire Scarlatti family, and he promptly accepted the offer.

In the event, Scarlatti’s tenure in Naples was marked by further controversy. Nevertheless, he remained in charge of the viceroy’s chapel until 1702 and during that time was the dominant composer in the city. As at Rome, Scarlatti made his principal impact at Naples as a composer of operas. Over a twenty-year period, he composed more than half of the new operas performed at Naples and adapted and supplemented the majority of the operas by a variety of composers that were imported from Venice and elsewhere. For Naples he composed the first of his serenatas—large-scale works for soloists, instruments, and occasionally chorus generally written to celebrate specific occasions—and continued his output of cantatas, at least sixty-five of which date from these years. He was also responsible for the composition and performance of music for the Viceregal Chapel.

Opera at Naples was under the direct patronage of the viceroy, and new works were generally premiered in the theater at the Viceregal Palace before being transferred to the public theater of San Bartolomeo. Scarlatti may have had a hand in the composition and performance of as many as eighty of these, the most successful of which were Il Pirro e Demetrio (1694) and La caduta de’ Decemviri (1697). These works and others carried Scarlatti’s fame as a composer and Naples’s renown as a center of operatic activity throughout Italy and as far abroad as Germany and England. As with the Roman operas, the subject matter was generally based very loosely on historical figures and events, history being freely altered to provide suitable opportunities for dramatic encounters between characters (generally conveyed in the form of recitative) and reactions by one and occasionally two of the characters to these encounters (generally conveyed in the form of arias or duets).

By the end of the 1690’s, Scarlatti apparently felt overworked by the viceroy and underappreciated by the Neapolitan public. He was certainly worried about his financial situation, because his salary was being paid irregularly and the onset of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 promised hard times and possibly extensive warfare for the city of Naples. In addition, he was concerned with the future of his son Domenico, the sixth of his ten children and an exceptionally talented keyboard player and composer. In June, 1702, father and son left Naples for an approved absence of four months, which stretched to six years for Scarlatti.

Scarlatti and his son went first to Florence in the hope of obtaining an appointment in the service of Prince Ferdinand de’ Medici, a great patron of music. No appointment was forthcoming, and father and son returned to Naples before Scarlatti moved to Rome. Over the next six years, Scarlatti sent Ferdinand oratorios, church music, and at least four new operas, the latter completely lost, apparently hoping that the Florentine prince would be interested in more serious fare than was acceptable at Naples. Meanwhile, at the end of 1703 Scarlatti became assistant chapel master of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome and probably entered the service of his earlier patron Cardinal Ottoboni, already a patron of Arcangelo Corelli and soon to be the same for George Frideric Handel.

The years 1704-1707 were not banner ones for Scarlatti. The Roman public theaters had been closed since 1700, so operas were seldom performed. Aside from the lost operas sent to Florence, he wrote only two five-act tragedie per musica for performance at Venice in 1707. Of these, Il Mitridate Eupatore (1707), based on the Orestes legend, is generally considered one of his greatest works. Instead of operas, Scarlatti produced during this period a stream of cantatas, serenatas, and oratorios written for old and new Roman patrons. He was elected to the Arcadian Academy in 1706 together with Pasquini and Corelli. In 1707, he was promoted to chapel master of Santa Maria Maggiore, but his financial worries continued and Domenico’s career was apparently not flourishing at Venice. Naples, which did not suffer extensively during the War of the Spanish Succession, was ceded to the Austrians in 1707, and in 1709, Scarlatti accepted an invitation from Cardinal Grimani, the first Austrian viceroy, to return as viceregal chapel master.

For the next decade, Scarlatti remained at Naples while retaining his Roman contacts. He wrote at least eleven operas for the viceroy, the most famous being Il Tigrane (1715) and one of the most interesting being Il trionfo dell’ onore (1718), his only late opera to be designated commedia in musica. He also began to compose purely instrumental music, most notably his twelve Sinfonie di concerto grosso, begun in 1715.

Scarlatti had attained the status of a famous and revered composer, even receiving a patent of nobility from Pope Clement XI in 1716 that allowed him to employ the title “Cavaliere.” His music, however, was rapidly falling from favor, and his essentially serious operas could not compete with the simpler, livelier style of the younger composers such as Domenico Sarri, Francesco Mancini, or Leonardo Vinci. Even his most famous operas were seldom revived.

In 1718, Scarlatti once more obtained leave from Naples and returned to Rome. He may have anticipated supervising the career of his son Domenico, then serving as chapel master of the Cappella Giulia at St. Peter’s Basilica, but the younger Scarlatti had apparently had enough of his father’s interference and succeeded in securing an order of legal independence in early 1717. In August, 1719, Domenico gave up his appointments in Rome and left, arriving by September, 1720, in Lisbon. He spent the rest of his life in Portugal and Spain, returning to Italy only three times and visiting his aging father only on the second of those visits in 1725.

Alessandro was in Rome by Carnival, 1718, to direct his new opera Telemaco. He also produced the operas Macro Attilio Regolo (1719), La Griselda (1721), and two more whose music did not survive. He composed an oratorio, several cantatas, and some large-scale sacred works, including his Mass for S Cecilia (1708) and several related vespers psalms and motets written in 1720. Several of these later works employ larger orchestras and display more interesting use of instrumentation than his earlier compositions. Even in those scored for soloists with string orchestra alone, the vocal line is independent from that of the first violins, producing a thicker and more complicated texture.

Scarlatti returned to Naples in 1722, where he spent his last years writing some music, entertaining guests, including the younger composers Johann Adolph Hasse and Johann Joachim Quantz, and gradually passing from public memory. He died on October 22, 1725, and is buried in the Santa Cecilia Chapel at the Church of Santa Maria di Montesanto.

Significance

By his own count, Alessandro Scarlatti composed 114 operas between 1679 and 1721, but this may include his additions to operas by others. He also composed more than six hundred cantatas, most for a single voice accompanied only by a basso continuo, and was the most prolific composer of this genre and the last to make a significant contribution to it. He also wrote at least thirty-five serenatas, forty oratorios, and a substantial body of church music. Only in the area of instrumental music did he fail to make a significant contribution, despite a flurry of interest in his last years, which produced some eighteen concerti and a variety of chamber sonatas and keyboard pieces.

Scarlatti was easily the most prolific vocal composer of his generation and probably the most famous. His greatest success came at Naples in the 1680’s and 1690’s. As he grew older, his fame remained, but his post-1700 operas, though admired, were seldom popular successes. Although he brought fame to Naples, his own essentially conservative and contrapuntal style had little direct influence on the famous Neapolitan composers of the eighteenth century. His operas and cantatas illustrate the development of musical forms and styles in the late seventeenth century, but his own influence was not substantial. His last operas were clearly underwritten by his loyal Roman patrons and received scant critical or popular acclaim, being too old-fashioned even for so conservative a city. By the time of his death, he was largely forgotten.

Scarlatti’s posthumous reputation has suffered much from hearsay and legend. Very little of his music was actually known by succeeding generations. The music to more than half of his operas is completely lost, and more than half of the remainder survive only in fragmentary form. Only since 1974 have a handful of his operas been available in reliable modern editions, and even fewer have been performed. The cantatas survive in profusion, but only a very few are available in modern editions and only one, Su le sponde del Tebro—an atypical work for soprano, trumpet, strings, and continuo—is at all well known. The same holds true for the serenatas. Perversely, several of the less important genres have fared somewhat better, and ten of the oratorios have appeared in reliable modern editions since 1953, as have all the madrigals and a small number of the instrumental and sacred works.

In the late eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries, Scarlatti was mistakenly seen as the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera composers and the teacher of many of its earliest members. In fact, he should more appropriately be seen as a composer of the seventeenth century, whose works mark the culmination of the Italian traditions of opera and cantata composition of that century. His main contributions were to the expansion of the dimensions of arias, the standardization of the use of the da capo form, and the more active participation of the orchestra in vocal accompaniments. It was his misfortune to have written some of his greatest works in the eighteenth century, when a newer, lighter style prevailed.

Bibliography

Buelow, George J. A History of Baroque Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. Chapter 5 focuses on Arcangelo Corelli and Scarlatti, with a portion of the chapter describing Scarlatti’s vocal chamber music.

Dent, Edward J. Alessandro Scarlatti: His Life and Works. 2d rev. ed. London: Edward Arnold, 1960. The pioneering biography of Scarlatti and, although brief, still the best single-volume work in English. Dent and Frank Walker, who revised this work, were both perceptive students of Scarlatti’s life and works, and the former’s comments on the music are particularly useful.

Grout, Donald J. Alessandro Scarlatti: An Introduction to His Operas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. A brief but very clear introduction to the subject drawn from the Ernst Bloch lectures Grout delivered at Berkeley in 1975-1976. Includes several extended musical examples but no bibliography.

Robinson, Michael F. Naples and Neapolitan Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Although primarily concerned with events of the later eighteenth century, this book places Scarlatti in context and is a valuable study of the tradition he was long held to have established.

Schulenberg, David. Music of the Baroque. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Chapter 6 describes secular vocal music in the late seventeenth century, including an eleven-page discussion of Scarlatti and the later cantata.

Smither, Howard E. The Oratorio in the Baroque Era: Italy, Vienna, Paris. Vol. 1 in A History of the Oratorio. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977. An exhaustive treatment of the subject, especially valuable for the discussion of the social context. Pages 335-342 are especially relevant. Contains an extensive bibliography.

Westrup, Jack A. “Alessandro Scarlatti’s Il Mitridate (1707).” In New Looks at Italian Opera: Essays in Honor of Donald J. Grout, edited by William W. Austin. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1968. A brief introduction to Scarlatti’s serious opera of 1707, which retells the Orestes myth under different names. Regarded as one of Scarlatti’s greatest works, Il Mitridate Eupatore was long championed by Westrup.