Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti

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(b Palermo, 2 May 1660; d Naples, 22 Oct 1725). Italian composer. When he was 12 he was sent to Rome, where he may have studied with Carissimi. He married in 1678 and later that year was appointed maestro di cappella of S Giacomo degli Incurabili (now ‘in Augusta’). By then he had already composed at least one opera (the title is unknown and it was not performed) and a second, Gli equivoci nel sembiante, was a resounding success in1679. It confirmed Scarlatti in his chosen career as an opera composer and attracted the attention of Queen Christina of Sweden, who made him her maestro di cappella.

In 1684 Scarlatti was appointed maestro di cappella at the vice-regal court of Naples, at the same time as his brother Francesco was made first violinist. It was alleged that they owed their appointments to the intrigues of one of their sisters (apparently Melchiorra) with two court officials, who were dismissed. For the next two decades over half the new operas given at Naples were by Scarlatti. Two of them, Il Pirro e Demetrio (1694) and La caduta dei Decemviri (1697), were especially successful, but by 1700 the War of the Spanish Succession was beginning to undermine the privileged status of the Neapolitan nobility, rendering Scarlatti's position insecure. In 1702 he left with his family for Florence, where he hoped to find employment for himself and his son Domenico with Prince Ferdinando de′ Medici.

When these hopes failed, Scarlatti accepted the inferior position in Rome of assistant music director at S Maria Maggiore. With a papal ban on public opera, he found an outlet for his talents in oratorio and in writing cantatas for his Roman patrons, notably Prince Ruspoli and the cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphili. In 1706 he was elected to the Arcadian Academy, with Pasquini and Corelli. The following year he attempted to conquer Venice, the citadel of Italian opera, with Mitridate Eupatore and Il trionfo della libertà, but they both failed and Scarlatti was forced to return to Rome, where he was promoted to the senior post at S Maria Maggiore.

Scarlatti found little satisfaction in the life of a church musician, and towards the end of 1708 he accepted an invitation from the new Austrian viceroy to resume his position at Naples. He remained there for the rest of his life, but maintained close contacts with his Roman patrons and made several visits there, some of them of long duration. It was probably in 1715 that he received a patent of nobility from Pope Clement XI. His final opera, La Griselda, was written for Rome in1721, and he seems to have spent his last years in Naples in semi-retirement. Quantz visited him in 1724 and Hasse was his pupil for a time. Scarlatti's reputation as the founder of the Neapolitan school of 18th-century opera has been exaggerated. He was not influential or even very active as a teacher, nor was he the sole originator of the musical structures (da capo aria, Italian overture, accompanied recitative) with which his name is associated, though he did bring to these a level of skill and originality which surpassed those of his contemporaries. Some of his best music is in the chamber cantatas, too few of which are known today.

Alessandro's sisters, Anna Maria (1661-1703) and Melchiorra Brigida (1663-1736), were both singers who worked in Rome and Naples; their relations with church authorities may have assisted Alessandro in his career. His brother Francesco (1666- c 1745) was a court violinist in Naples and had works performed there and in Rome. His brother Tommaso (c 1670-1760) was a tenor who sang in Naples. Alessandro's son Pietro Filippo (1679-1750) was maestro di cappella at Urbino and later organist at the Naples royal chapel; his works include an opera and cantatas. For his son Domenico, see below.

• Gli equivoci nel sembiante (1679)
• La Statira (1690)
• Il Pirro e Demetrio (1694)
• La caduta dei Decemviri (1697)
• L′Eraclea (1700)
• Il Mitridate Eupatore (1707)
• Il Tigrane (1715)
• Telemaco (1718)
• Il trionfo dell′onore (1718)
• Marco Attilio Regolo (1719)
• La Griselda (1721)
• over 30 others
• contributions to other composers operas

• over 700 cantatas
• c 33 serenatas
• 8 madrigals

• at least 35 oratorios (some lost)
• St John Passion
• 10 masses
• responsories for Holy Week
• Lamentations for Holy Week
• Stabat mater
• 2 Magnificats
• Te Deum
• over 70 motets

• 12 sinfonie di concerto grosso (1715)
• 4 sonatas, str
• 7 sonatas, fl, str, bc (1725)
• kbd toccatas, variations

Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (1660-1725) was an Italian composer. Over 600 of his chamber cantatas survive; they represent the peak of the genre. The most outstanding and influential operatic writer of his day, he founded the so-called Neapolitan opera school.

The operas by Alessandro Scarlatti that primarily influenced his younger contemporaries were written during his first sojourn in Naples, when he felt obliged to cater to Neapolitan taste - one that preferred simple, immediately attractive melodies, embellished with coloratura, and that elevated the importance of the solo singer, especially the castrato, to unprecedented heights, and, as a result, severely limited the number of ensembles and the role of the orchestra. Three other important features of this period are the increasing use of the da capo form of aria, which by the turn of the century virtually ousted all other forms; the establishing of the so-called Italian overture, or sinfonia, as a tripartite form - quick, slow, quick - first introduced in the 1696 revival of Scarlatti's Tutto il mal … (1681); and the inclusion in most of the operas of two comic characters who are an integral part of the plot.

Scarlatti's greatest operas are those he wrote after he left Naples in 1702. In them the orchestra is more important and colorful, the melodies are more subtly expressive and phrased, the harmony is clearer and more varied, and the texture ranges from simple homophony to rich polyphony. It was these operas that influenced, in varying degrees and in different ways, such composers as George Frederick Handel, Johann Adolf Hasse, and Scarlatti's son Domenico, the last two being among the most significant figures in the transition period between the baroque and the Viennese school of the late 18th century.

Scarlatti was born in Palermo on May 2, 1660, the eldest son of Pietro and Eleonora d'Amato Scarlata. Details of his early life are sketchy; he probably went to relatives in Rome in 1672 in company with his two sisters, Anna Maria and Melchiorra, and, tradition has it, became a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi. This tradition is supported by the earliest record of Scarlatti as a musician, namely, a commission, dated Jan. 27, 1679, to compose an oratorio for the Arciconfraternita‧ del SS. Crocifisso, for which Carissimi had written several similar works.

In April of the previous year Scarlatti married Antonia Anzalone; they had 10 children, of whom by far the most distinguished was Domenico. The first of Scarlatti's operas to bring him fame, Gli equivoci nel sembiante (1679), also brought him an appointment, for the libretto of his next opera, L'honesta‧ negli amori (1680), describes him as chapelmaster (maestro di cappella) to Queen Christina of Sweden, who spent most of her life in Rome after her abdication.

In 1683 Scarlatti was put in charge of the entire opera season at Naples, producing in December his first original work for the city, Psiche. The following year he became chapelmaster to the royal chapel in Naples, an appointment that was largely, if not wholly, due to an influential official whose mistress was Scarlatti's sister Melchiorra. In the ensuing scandal the highly esteemed second chapelmaster, Provenzale, who had expected to be promoted, resigned, the official was fired, and Melchiorra was ordered to leave the city or enter a convent!

During the next 18 years Scarlatti composed at least 38 operas, in addition to serenatas, cantatas, and church music; all but six of the operas were performed initially in Naples, and many of them received performances elsewhere. But although his fame was spreading, Scarlatti was becoming increasingly frustrated by the kind of music he was expected to produce. In 1702 he was granted 4 months' leave of absence, but once out of Naples it is clear he had no intention of returning, and for the next 7 years he looked in vain for a position that would satisfy his needs and wishes.

At first Scarlatti enjoyed the patronage of Prince Ferdinand de' Medici in Florence, for whose private theater he wrote several operas; no permanent position transpired, however, and in 1703 he accepted a very inferior post as assistant chapelmaster at the church of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome. In 1707 he became principal chapelmaster, but this did nothing to lessen his frustration, for in Rome at this time opera was virtually nonexistent, owing to strong papal disapproval. But he continued to write operas for Prince Ferdinand, most of which have not survived, and composed his first opera for Venice (1707), where he spent some months.

Although Scarlatti's operatic production had waned during this period, his reputation had not, and in 1709 he returned to his old post at Naples, with an increase in salary and free to compose as he wished. Here he remained until 1717, producing some of his best operas, notably Tigrane (1715), and receiving a knighthood from the Pope the following year. But Rome still held a great fascination for him, and in 1717, encouraged by a change in the papal attitude toward opera, he settled there. In the ensuing 5 years or so he composed his last works for the stage, including his one comic essay in the genre, I trionfo dell'onore (1718), and, according to the libretto, his 114th opera - Griselda (1721). (This is the last of 35 complete extant operas from a known total of 115.)

In 1722 or 1723 Scarlatti returned to Naples, where he lived in complete retirement, composing very little, and virtually ignored. In 1724 Hasse, then aged 25, became his pupil and close friend. Scarlatti died on Oct. 24, 1725.

Further Reading

An old but still useful biography of Scarlatti is Edward J. Dent, Alessandro Scarlatti (1905; rev. ed. 1960). He is discussed in Manfred F. Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era (1947), and Donald J. Grout, A Short History of Opera (1947; 2d ed. 1965).