Alessandro Stradella
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Alessandro Stradella
(b Rome, 1 Oct 1644; d Genoa, 25 Feb 1682). Italian composer. He spent most of his career in Rome, where he lived independently but composed many works to commissions from Queen Christina of Sweden, the Colonna family and others. Most of his stage works there were prologues and intermezzos, notably for operas by Cavalli and Cesti revived at the new Tordinona Theatre in 1671-2. His life included many scandals and amorous adventures. He left Rome in 1677 after a dispute, and went by way of Venice and Turin (escaping an attempt on his life) to Genoa (1678). His only comic opera, Il Trespolo tutore, was given there in c 1677; later he presented several other operas, including Il Corispero. He was killed there in 1682, again a consequence of an amorous intrigue.
Stradella was one of the leading composers in Italy in his day and one of the most versatile. His music was widely admired, even as far afield as England. Most of it is clearly tonal, and counterpoint features prominently. His vocal output includes c 30 stage works, several oratorios and Latin church works and some 200 cantatas (most for solo voice). In his operas the orchestra consists of two violin parts and continuo, but some other works, such as the oratorio S Giovanni Battista (1675, Rome), follow the Roman principal of concerto grosso instrumentation. There is a clear differentiation between aria and recitative (which sometimes includes arioso writing), but their succession is still fluid; various aria forms are used. Stradella's 27 surviving instrumental works are mostly of the sonata da chiesa type. The scoring and textures of a Sonata di viole of his make it the earliest known concerto grosso; it was apparently a model for Corelli's concertos op.6.
AMG AllMusic Guide to Classical Music :
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Alessandro Stradella
- Genres: Choral Music, Opera, Vocal Music
Biography
One of the earlier members of that elite caste of composers who lived only into their mid-thirties (one thinks, of course, of Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn), Italian Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella is considered one of the most versatile and influential musical figures of the mid-seventeenth century. Born in Rome in 1644, Stradella first appears in the historical record eleven years later when his name is among the singers listed at St. Marcello del Crocifisso Cathedral. In 1658 he became a singer at the court of Queen Christina of Sweden (stationed in Rome), who, by 1663, was sufficiently impressed with Stradella's musical skills to begin commissioning compositions from him (beginning with the motet Chare Jesu suavissime). Soon other Roman notables followed suit, and Stradella produced an assortment of motets, prologues and intermezzi (to be performed between the acts of other composers' operas) throughout the 1660s.In 1669 Stradella joined the abbot Antonio Sforza and violinist Ambrogio Lonati in an unsuccessful plot to embezzle funds from the Roman Catholic Church. Stradella managed to escape imprisonment but found it advisable to flee Rome until the entire affair had been buried by the Church. By 1670 he was back in the city writing musical prologues and intermezzi for the Tordinona public theater in Rome. After 1675 (a Holy Year during which all public theater productions were forbidden) Stradella redirected his energies to sacred composition (mostly large religious-dramatic oratorios) and instrumental composition.
By 1677 Stradella had once again earned the disfavor of the Roman Church, and was forced to flee the city. Invited to the city of Venice to provide a musical education for the wealthy Alvise Contarini's mistress, Stradella instead charmed and absconded with the mistress, and a price was put on his head by the very powerful Contarini family. After an attempt on his life in October of 1677 Stradella traveled to Genoa, where a number of his operas and sacred oratorios were subsequently performed. A scandalous love affair with a Genoese noblewoman earned Stradella the wrath of the Lomellini family, and in 1681 the composer was killed by a Lomellini agent.
Stradella seems to have had plenty of money (he certainly never relied on musical commissions to survive), and it is very likely that he was born into the aristocracy. His substantial output includes 27 surviving purely instrumental works -- virtually all in sonata da chiesa design, and likely a great influence on the young Arcangelo Corelli, whom we know to have had a familiarity with Stradella's music. Stradella's vocal compositions show a great musical and textual diversity. The opera Il Trespolo tutore, containing as it does an important, humorous bass character, is one of the earliest examples of opera buffa. While his operas all employ a relatively small orchestra (two violins and continuo), Stradella experimented with more sizeable instrumental ensembles in his cantatas and oratorios, many of which feature the kind of concerto grosso string division (i.e. concertino and tutti groups); this would soon become a prominent feature in Italian Baroque composition. ~ Blair Johnston, Rovi
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Alessandro Stradella
Alessandro Stradella (Nepi, 3 April 1639 [1] – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.[2]
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Life
Not much is known about his early life, but he was from a Tuscan aristocratic family, educated at Bologna, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20. In 1667 he moved to Rome where he composed for Christina, Queen of Sweden, mostly sacred music. He was involved in performances of four operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti. Stradella began to live a dissolute life. With Carlo Ambrogio Lonati he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. His numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good.
In 1677 he went to Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Van Uffele. She and Stradella began an affair and fled Venice together for Turin. Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffelle and Stradella must marry or that Uffelle must take the veil. She did the latter, and then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the contract, he was attacked from behind on 10 October by two would-be hired assassins, who believed him dead when they left him in the street. He was not. The two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. That Contarini had hired the attackers became known, leading to complaints from the duke of Savoy to Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts. In 1678 he fled to Genoa, where he met again with Lonati. He was paid to compose music for the local nobility and the theatro Falconi.[3] In 1682 he was stabbed to death at the Piazza Banchi. His infidelities were well-known, and a nobleman was rumored to have hired the killer; but the identity of the killer was never discovered, and the hiring was never substantiated.[4] Stradella was buried in the Santa Maria delle Vigne.
Work
Stradella was an extremely influential composer at the time, though his fame was eclipsed in the next century by Corelli, Vivaldi and others. Some of his music was exploited by George Frideric Handel, for example in Israel in Egypt. Probably his greatest significance is in originating the concerto grosso: while Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under this title, Stradella clearly uses the format earlier in one of his Sonate di viole. Since the two knew each other, a direct influence is likely.
Stradella wrote at least six baroque operas [5] including a full-length comic opera Il Trespolo tutore. He also wrote more than 170 cantatas, at least one was based on a poem by Sebastiano Baldini and six oratorios. Stradella composed 27 separate instrumental pieces, most for strings and basso continuo, and typically in the sonata da chiesa format.
Legacy
His colorful life and bloody death provided the basis for three later operas on his life. The best-known of these is Alessandro Stradella (Hamburg, 1844), by Friedrich von Flotow.
American novelist F. Marion Crawford also produced a highly romanticized novel of Stradella's affair and flight from Venice, titled Stradella (Macmillan 1909).
Recordings
- Stradella: Il barcheggio - Valentina Valente; Marco Lazzara; Giovanni Dagnino; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor) Label: Bongiovanni GB 2102
- Stradella: Moro per amore - Marco Beasley; Marco Lazzara; Roberta Invernizzi; Riccardo Ristori; Silvia Piccollo; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor). Label: Bongiovanni GB 2153
- Stradella: Esule dalle sfere - Roberta Invernizzi; Marco Lazzara; Riccardo Ristori; Mario Nuvoli; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor). Label: Bongiovanni GB 2165
- Cantatas Amanti, olà, olà!; Chi resiste al Dio bendato Estevan Velardi, Alessandro Stradella Consort
- Stradella: Motets Sandrine Piau, Gérard Lesne, Il Seminario musicale
- Cantatas: Brandes, Paul O'Dette, Springfels, Weiss. Harmonia Mundi
- Cantata per il Santissimo Natale (Christmas Eve Cantata): Si apra al riso La Magnifica Comunità. Enrico Casazza. Brilliant
- San Giovanni Battista (1) Erato, (2) Academia Montis Regalis, Alessandro de Marchi Hyperion 2008
References and further reading
- ^ Carolyn Gianturco. "Stradella, Alessandro." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/26888 (accessed July 24, 2011).
- ^ http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67617
- ^ http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDA67617
- ^ The story of a love-affair with a pupil was written down by Pierre Bourdelot and published in 1715.
- ^ Le gare dell’amor eroico ossia l’Oratio Opera in three acts. Genova, Teatro Falcone 1679; revived Genova 2006.
- "Alessandro Stradella", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
- Carolyn Gianturco: "Alessandro Stradella", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed March 13, 2006), (subscription access)
External links
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Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia
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Mentioned in
Friedrich von Flotow
(German composer)
Flotow: Alessandro Stradella
(Classical Album)
Stradella: Amanti, olà, olà!; Chi resiste al Dio bendato
(Classical Album)
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