composers in this form from the first displayed but moderate zeal and power, and the public interest in it was slight. Yet the total number of works produced was not small.
After about 1660, passing over those with but one or two works, the following
oratorio-composers may be noted: Provenzale of Naples, with 3 (from
c. 1670); Colonna (d. 1695) of Bologna, with 11 (from 1677); Stradella
(d. 1681), with perhaps 8 (c. 1680), of which S. Giovanni Battista is the
best-known; A. Scarlatti (d. 1725), the great Neapolitan, with 14 (from
1683); Pasquini (d. 1710), the organist of Rome, with 5 (1685-9); Perti
of Bologna (d. 1756), with over 10 (from 1685); Gianettini (d. 1721)
of Modena, with 4 (1687-1704); G. B. Bononcini (d. c. 1750) of Bologna,
Vienna, London, etc., with 4 (from 1688); Bassani (d. 1716) of Ferrara, with
3 (c. 1689); Aldrovandini (d. after 1711) of Bologna and Mantua, with 5
(1691-1706); Pistocchi, the eminent singing-master of Bologna, with 3
(from 1692); and Polaroli (d. 1722) of Venice and Vienna, with at least 3
(from c. 1700).
At Vienna, Italian workers in this field included Bertali (d. 1669), with 3 (1663-5); Sances (d. 1679), with 4 (1666-72); Draghi (d. 1700), the prolific opera-writer, with over 30 (from 1669); Ariosti (d. c. 1740), with 5 (1693-1709); Badia (d. 1738), with 16 (1694-1717); M. A. Ziani (d. 1715), with 10 (1700-13); and M. A. Bononcini (d. 1726), with 3 (1707-11).
Most of these were chiefly famous as opera-writers (see secs. 90-91).
