(b Burano, 18 Oct 1706; d Venice, 3 Jan 1785). Italian composer. He studied with Lotti and worked briefly in Florence, then returned to Venice, where his successful opera seriaDorinda (1729) launched his theatrical career: many others followed. In 1740-51 he taught at the Mendicanti orphanage. He worked in London, 1741-3, presenting four operas. Subsequently he enjoyed growing fame both in Italy and abroad. He was a vice-maestro at St Mark's, 1748-62, then maestro di cappella (Venice's highest musical post). An extended collaboration followed with the librettist Carlo Goldoni. With L′Arcadia in Brenta (1749, Venice) he was successful in comic opera; Il filosofo di campagna (1754, Venice) was especially popular. As music director of Catherine the Great's chapel, 1765-8, he staged operas at St Petersburg and Moscow and composed Russian sacred music. Returning to Venice, he became maestro di coro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili; latterly his operatic output decreased.
Galuppi was a crucial figure in the development of opera buffa, and his c 30 works in the genre were the first to gain widespread fame. Most of them are cast in the new dramma giocoso genre, with partly serious elements, that he created with Goldoni. They use an early Classical style, with simple but inventive melodies carefully matched to the text. Often the orchestra carries the musical continuity. Many aria forms appear, and his use of the sectional ‘chain finale’ was influential. His c 70 serious operas show a growing use of ‘reform’ elements. Among his other works are cantatas, 27 oratorios, church music and instrumental works (including over 100 harpsichord pieces).
Galuppi, Baldassare (bäldäs-sä'rā gälūp'pē), 1706-85, Italian composer. A pupil of Lotti, he developed the opera buffa style in the period between Scarlatti and Mozart, and he also wrote oratorios and chamber music. He is immortalized in Robert Browning's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's."
Baldassare Galuppi, a key figure in the history of Italian comic opera, was for some time known only through his mention in Robert Browning's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's." Galuppi's father was a barber and violinist who gave his son elementary music lessons. By the age of 16 he had composed an opera, La fede nell'incostanza ossia Gli amici rivali. It was a spectacular failure; the curtain had to be brought down before the audience rioted. The puzzled young man went to the composer Benedetto Marcello to try to find out why. The mentor took him to task for daring to write an opera before he was ready, and made him promise not to compose anything for three years, but to undertake study with Antonio Lotti, who called Galuppi his best pupil.
Galuppi went to Florence to work as a harpsichord player in the orchestra of Teatro della Pergola in 1726. He returned to Venice and formed a partnership with a writer friend of his from school, G.B. Peschetti. His second attempt at opera, Dorinda (1729), was a major success. For the rest of his life he averaged about two operas per year, and they were played of Italy's major theaters. In 1740 the Ospedale dei Mendicanti (which included a conservatory) hired him as music director; he established a superb orchestra and church music for the institution. Meanwhile, Galuppi accepted an offer in 1741 from the Earl of Middlesex to write opera seria for his theater in the Haymarket, London. His first effort was moderately well received, and each successive opera was more popular than the last.
On returning to Italy in 1743 he took note of the cutting-edge Neapolitan innovation, opera buffa, and tried his hand at it. After some initial failures these comic operas, too, started to catch on. In 1748 he was appointed maestro of the cappella ducale at St. Mark's cathedral (and in 1762 was promoted to the head position, maestro di cappella, considered the top musical job in Venice). In 1751 the pressure of these positions led him to give up the position at the Mendicanti. His first comic success was L'Arcadia in Brenta, to a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, with whom Galuppi forged a partnership. Galuppi's best operas were played widely in Europe, and he was hired to go to Russia as music director of Catherine the Great's chapel. There he inaugurated an Italian dominance of Russian operatic life that lasted until Glinka's time; in addition, he introduced Western counterpoint into the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. Galuppi returned to Venice in 1768, resumed his duties at St. Mark's, and became chorus master at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. He phased out theatrical work, writing more keyboard music, sacred works, and oratorios.
Small in stature, he was described by the touring musical scholar Burney as an "agile little cricket" of a man. Burney also considered Galuppi one of the best operatic composers of the age, and the twentieth century's revival of interest in that era tended to confirm that opinion. His comic operas in particular are built of short, varied vocal phrases, with a strong melodic line and lively rhythms. He was adept at musical characterization and situational thinking. His orchestration was notable; winds mark important moments, and in finales he allowed the flow of string writing to carry the main melodic material while the voices exchange dialogue realistically. Galuppi's keyboard music, including over 130 sonatas, shows a bright, idiomatic, and lively style of writing, and establishes him as a major Italian composer for harpsichord and piano after Domenico Scarlatti.
He was born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon, and as a result, he became known as Il Buranello. His first attempt at opera, La fede nell'incostanza ossia gli amici rivali (1722), was a spectacular failure, having been hissed off the stage. He subsequently studied music with Antonio Lotti, and after a brief period in Florence working as a harpsichordist, returned to Venice for another attempt at opera. This time, his opera seriaDorinda (1729) was a success and launched his theatrical career.
In 1740, he was appointed music director of the Ospedale dei Mendicanti, and he worked at St. Mark's in Venice from 1748, being appointed maestro di cappella (considered Venice's top musical post) there in 1762. He lived and worked for most of his life in Venice, though from 1741 to 1743 he worked in London, and from 1765 to 1768 he worked for Catherine the Great in St. Petersburg.
His first opera buffa was L'Arcadia in Brenta (1749). This was also his first collaboration with librettistCarlo Goldoni, with whom he produced a number of operas. These works were very popular, with Il filosofo di campagna (1754) a particular success. Goldoni's libretto Il mondo della luna, first set by Galuppi, was later used by a number of other composers, including Joseph Haydn and Giovanni Paisiello. Subsequent operas include L'amante di tutte (1760) and I tre amanti ridicoli (1761), written on libretti by the composer's son Antonio Galuppi, who wrote under the name "A. Liteo."
In his later years, his operatic output decreased somewhat. Among his nonoperatic works are a large number of pieces for harpsichord and several oratorios. By the time of his death, in Venice, Galuppi was one of the best-known and most respected figures in the Venetian musical establishment. A requiem mass was held in his memory at St Mark's.
At least two sacred choral works by Antonio Vivaldi have been attributed to Galuppi, a Beatus Vir and a Nisi Dominus.; musicologist Janice Stockigt believes that a Dixit Dominus might be another such work.
The EnglishpianistPeter Seivewright is currently recording all of Galuppi's 90 keyboard sonatas in what will be a projected ten-CD set for The Divine Art record label; he is also publishing them.[1]
References
^Charles Van Den Borren (May 1, 1923). "Research regarding the fictional toccata by Galuppi of Browning's poem". The Musical Times. pp. 314–316.
