Page:Pratt - The history of music (1907).djvu/290

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church works, written in a smooth, thoughtful style, including some oratorios, as Isacco (1755), a Passion (1749), many masses, motets and cantatas, a famous Laudate pueri (1746), a great Requiem (1756), a Miserere (1774), etc. He also left some instrumental works, of much less value.

Johann Adolph Hasse (d. 1783) was older than Jommelli, but outlived him. He was born in 1699 near Hamburg, where he came under Keiser's influence. In 1721 he produced his first opera, Antiochus (German text), at Brunswick. In 1722 he went to Italy for a ten years' sojourn, receiving from the Neapolitans his permanent style, partly from Alessandro Scarlatti himself, and writing operas for both Naples (from 1723) and Venice. In 1730 he married the prima donna Faustina Bordoni (d. 1781), to whom much of his later success was due. From 1731 he was court-choirmaster at Dresden, enjoying great local honor and having leave frequently to travel, as to London in 1735 (to compete with Handel), in 1740 to Paris, in 1746 to Munich, in 1753 to Berlin, besides many trips to Italy, everywhere in request as a popular favorite. In 1748-50 occurred a series of operatic contests with Porpora at Dresden. In 1760, in the siege by the Prussians, his property was destroyed, including most of the MSS. for a complete edition of his works. From 1764, the Saxon Chapel being broken up, he moved to Vienna, continuing composition, and from 1773 lived in Venice, where he died. At Dresden he was often visited by Bach, at Vienna he came into rivalry with Gluck, and at Milan along with his last opera, Ruggiero (1771), was given a serenata by the boy Mozart. His fertility was enormous, touching almost all branches of composition, though slight in contrapuntal forms. He essayed every variety of Catholic church music, and was prolific in sonatas and concertos for harpsichord, small orchestra or solo instruments—most of these without distinction, though always fluent and graceful. His dramatic works included some 10 oratorios and about 70 operas. He set about 25 librettos by Metastasio, some of them twice or thrice over. His more famous operas were Sesostrate (1726), Attalo (1728), Artaserse (1730, '40), Arminio (1731, '45), Alessandro (1731), La clemenza di Tito (1737, '59) and the intermezzo Piramo e Thisbe (1769). His style was melodious and singable rather than marked by dramatic or structural vigor. Its success was due to its perfect adaptation to the taste of the time.

Ignazio Fiorillo (d. 1787), a pupil of Leo and Durante, after some years of wandering, with operas at Venice and Milan from 1736, was from 1754 choirmaster at Brunswick and in 1762-80 at Cassel. He wrote some 14 operas in a style resembling Hasse's, besides church music. Another composer of the same class was Giovanni Battista Lampugnani (d. c. 1790), a Milanese who succeeded Galuppi at London in 1744 and lived at Milan from 1770, writing in all about 20 operas (from 1737).


While the Neapolitans were thus developing the opera, especially on its melodic side, the later writers of the Venetian school were not idle, though their numerous works added little to real progress.


Among the composers already mentioned (sec. 90) who worked on into the 18th century were M.A. Ziani (d. 1715), Perti (d. 1756, no operas after