Baldassarre Galuppi
Encyclopedia
Baldassare Galuppi was an Italian composer, born on the island of Burano
in the Venetian Republic
. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in London and Saint Petersburg
, but his main base remained Venice, where he held a succession of leading appointments.
In his early career Galuppi made a modest success in opera seria
, but from the 1740s, together with the playwright and librettist Carlo Goldoni
, he became famous throughout Europe for his comic operas in the new dramma giocoso
style. To the succeeding generation of composers he was known as "the father of comic opera". Some of his mature opere serie, for which his librettists included the poet and dramatist Metastasio
, were also widely popular.
Throughout his career Galuppi held official positions with charitable and religious institutions in Venice, the most prestigious of which was head of music at the Doge
's chapel, St Mark's Basilica
. In these various capacities he composed a large amount of religious music. He was also highly regarded as a virtuoso performer on and composer for keyboard instruments.
After Galuppi's death his music was largely forgotten. His name was brought back to public notice by the English poet Robert Browning
's 1855 poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's
", but this did not restore the composer's work to the general repertoire. Some of Galuppi's pieces were occasionally performed in the 200 years after his death, but it was not until the last years of the 20th century that his works were extensively revived in live performance and on record.
in the Venetian Lagoon
, and was widely known as "Il Buranello." His father was a barber, who also played the violin in theatre orchestras, and is believed to have been his son's first music teacher. The young Galuppi was educated at the Conservatorio degli Incurabili, and at the age of 15 he composed his first opera, Gli amici rivali, which was performed unsuccessfully at Chioggia
and equally unsuccessfully in Vicenza
under the title La fede nell'incostanza.
Galuppi took lessons in composition and harpsichord
from Antonio Lotti
, the chief organist at St Mark's Basilica
. From 1726 to 1728, he was harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola
in Florence
. On his return to Venice in 1728, he produced a second opera, Gl'odi delusi dal sangue, written in collaboration with another Lotti pupil, Giovanni Battista Pescetti
; it was well received when it was presented at the Teatro San Angelo
. The collaborators followed it with an opera seria
, Dorinda, the next year. This, too, was modestly successful, and Galuppi began to receive commissions for operas and oratorios.
In 1740, Galuppi was appointed director of music at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, where his duties ranged from teaching and conducting to composing liturgical music and oratorios. In his first year of service at the Mendicanti, he composed 31 works: 16 motets, 13 settings of the Salve Regina
, and two psalm settings. Although he became internationally known as an operatic composer, he maintained a steady output of religious music throughout his career.
In 1741 Galuppi was invited to work in London. He asked the Mendicanti authorities for leave of absence, to which they reluctantly agreed. He was in England for 18 months, supervising productions for the Italian opera company at the King’s Theatre
. Of the 11 operas under his direction, three were his own compositions, Penelope, Scipion in Cartagen and Sirbace; a fourth was presented shortly after he left London to return to Venice. Handel
attended one of these productions and was not greatly impressed. Galuppi also attracted attention as a keyboard virtuoso and composer. His contemporary, the English musicologist Charles Burney
, wrote that "Galuppi had had more influence on English music than any other Italian composer". However, in Burney's view Galuppi's skills were still immature during his spell in London. Burney wrote, "He now copied the hasty, light and flimsy style which reigned in Italy at this time, and which Handel's solidity and science had taught the English to despise."
On his return to Venice in May 1743, Galuppi returned to his employment with the Mendicanti, and to composing for the opera houses. The operatic fashion in Venice was on the point of changing from generally serious opera to a new style of comic opera, dramma giocoso
. Full-length comic operas from Naples and Rome were becoming fashionable; Galuppi adapted three of them for Venetian audiences in 1744, and the following year composed one of his own, La forza d’amore, which was only a mild success. He continued to compose serious operas, sometimes in uneasy partnership with the librettist Metastasio
. The latter believed firmly that the music was there to serve the text rather than vice versa. He grumbled about Galuppi in 1749, "He is, I presume, an excellent composer for violins, for cellos and for voices, but he is an exceedingly bad one for poets. When he writes he thinks as much about the words as you do about being elected Pope ... As far as the public is concerned, he is appreciated by those who judge with their ears but not their souls." Nevertheless, their joint work prospered, and was staged in other countries. In Vienna, their Demetrio and Artaserse were great successes, the former breaking all local box-office records.
In May 1748 Galuppi was appointed vice-maestro of the Doge's chapel, St Mark's. In time this would lead to a large body of religious compositions, but for the present Galuppi was chiefly engaged in operatic work. It is not clear why he accepted the post at St Mark's. The musicologist Denis Arnold writes, "He was already a very successful opera composer and with his duties at the Mendicanti he must have had enough to do. The salary at St Mark's was only 120 ducats. ... At this time it was not a very distinguished cappella. The choir probably numbered about 30; but since their posts continued up to death, a fair proportion of the singers were old."
Galuppi was fortunate that when he turned once more to comic opera in 1749 he collaborated with Carlo Goldoni
. Although an established and eminent playwright by the time he worked with Galuppi, Goldoni was happy for his libretti to be subservient to the music. He was as warm in his regard for Galuppi as Metastasio was cold. Their first collaboration was Arcadia in Brenta followed by four more joint works within a year. They were enormously popular at home and abroad, and to meet the demand for new drammi giocosi and opere serie Galuppi had to resign his post at the Mendicanti in 1751. By the middle of the 1750s he was, in the words of his biographer Dale Monson, "the most popular opera composer anywhere".
For the next ten years, Galuppi remained in Venice, with occasional sorties elsewhere for commissions and premieres, producing a series of secular and religious works. His operas, serious or comic, were in demand across Europe. Of the British premiere of Il filosofo di campagna
in 1761 Burney wrote, "This burletta surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas that were performed in England, till the Buona Figliuola
."
In April 1762 Galuppi was appointed to the leading musical post in Venice, maestro di capella of St Mark's, and in July of the same year he was also appointed maestro di coro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, at whose school he had been educated. At St Mark's, he set about reforming the choir. He persuaded the Basilica authorities, the Procurators, to be more flexible in payments to singers, allowing him to attract performers with first-rate voices such as Gaetano Guadagni
and Gasparo Pacchiarotti.
In June 1764 the senate granted Galuppi formal leave to go. He resigned his post at the Incurabili, made provision for his wife and daughters (who were to remain in Venice, while his son travelled with him), and set off for Russia. He made detours on his journey, visiting C.P.E. Bach and Giacomo Casanova
, before arriving in Saint Petersburg on 22 September 1765.
For the empress's court, Galuppi composed new works, both operatic and liturgical, and revived and revised many others. He wrote two operas there, Il re pastore (1766) and Ifigenia in Tauride (1768), and two cantatas, La virtù liberata (1765) and La pace tra la virtù e la belezza, the latter to words by Metastasio. In addition to the work for which he had been contracted, Galuppi gave weekly recitals at the harpsichord, and sometimes conducted orchestral concerts. To improve standards he was a hard taskmaster to the court orchestra, but was from the outset enormously impressed by the court choir. He is reported to have exclaimed, "I'd never heard such a magnificent choir in Italy". Galuppi took pride in his prestigious appointments; the title page of his 1766 Christmas mass for St Mark's describes him as: "First Master and Director of all the Music for Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of all the Russias, etc. etc. and First Master of the Ducal Chapel of St. Mark's in Venice." In 1768, as had been agreed, he returned to Venice, detouring again on his journey, this time to visit Johann Adolph Hasse
in Vienna.
Galuppi told Burney his definition of good music: "'vaghezza, chiarezza, e buona modulazione (beauty, clearness, and good modulation
)". Burney commented on Galuppi's prodigious workload that in addition to his duties at St Mark's and the Incurabili, "he has a hundred sequins a year as domestic organist to the family of Gritti, and is organist of another church, of which I have forgotten the name".
The last opera by Galuppi was La serva per amore, premiered in October 1773. In May 1782 he conducted concerts to mark a papal visit to Venice by Pius VI
. Thereafter he continued to compose, despite declining health. His last completed work was the 1784 Christmas mass for St Mark's.
After a two-month illness, Galuppi died on 3 January 1785. He was buried in the church of S Vitale, and, much mourned, was commemorated by a requiem mass "solemnized in the church of S Stefano, paid for by professional musicians, at which the actors of the Teatro S Benedetto
sang".
Galuppi, with 109 operas, was the sixth most prolific opera composer. His output was exceeded by his contemporaries Draghi
, Piccinni, Paisiello
, Guglielmi
, and the most prolific of all, with 166 operas, Wenzel Müller
; the only composer of later generations who approached his output was Offenbach
100 years later. Galuppi did not hesitate to re-use his own (or, according to Metastasio, other composers') music, sometimes simply transplanting it and at other times reworking it substantially.
He was called "the father of comic opera" by musicians of the generation that followed him. The 21st-century editor and musicologist Francesco Luisi writes that although this description is not strictly accurate, the Galuppi–Goldoni operas were "a genuinely new beginning for musical theatre". In Luisi's view these works fundamentally changed the nature of opera by making the music part of the drama and not merely a decoration. Galuppi's contemporary Esteban de Arteaga wrote approvingly that the composer was able to "illumine the personalities of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves by selecting the most appropriate type of voice and style of singing".
As well as his general contribution to the essentials of comic opera, establishing the music as at least as important as the words, Galuppi's (and Goldoni's) more specific legacy to comic opera was the large-scale buffo finale to end the acts. Hitherto acts had ended in short choruses or ensembles, but the elaborate and substantial finales introduced by Galuppi and his librettist set the pattern for Haydn
and Mozart
.
Galuppi's music for his comic operas is described by Luisi as "largely syllabic … designed to enhance the intelligibility of the text … without impairing the fluidity of the melodic lines." In his opere serie he observed the convention of the da capo
aria, but used it sparingly in his comic works. In performances of his serious operas, leading soloists would as a matter of course interpolate arias written by other composers: the "opus integer" – a complete work not to be tampered with – was not the rule in 18-century opera seria.
with smooth vocal lines in the tradition of Palestrina
and a good deal of counterpoint
. However, Galuppi applied the stile antico sparingly, and when he felt constrained to write contrapuntal music for the choir he would balance it with a bright modern style for the orchestral accompaniment. His masses and psalm settings for St Mark's exploit all the resources available to a modern composer in the mid-18th century, with choir supported by an orchestra of strings and some or all of flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and organ. As in his operas, Galuppi generally preferred syllabic settings, without elaborate melisma
s.
Monson notes that the church music composed by Galuppi in Saint Petersburg had a lasting influence on Russian church music: "His 15 a cappella
works on Russian texts for the Orthodox liturgy proved to be a watershed. Their Italian, light contrapuntal style joined with native melodic idioms was continued by Traetta
and Sarti
and maintained by, among others, D.S. Bortnyans'ky, his pupil." Marina Ritzarev comments that the Italian Vincenzo Manfredini
was Galuppi's predecessor as Russian court composer, and may have paved the way for his successor's innovations.
Some works long attributed to Galuppi were by Vivaldi. In 2003, a Nisi Dominus previously thought to be by Galuppi was reattributed to Vivaldi. The music of the latter, a generation earlier than Galuppi, went out of fashion after his death, and unscrupulous copyists and editors found that Galuppi's name on the title page increased a work's appeal. Other works in the Saxon State Collection have also been reattributed from Galuppi to Vivaldi, including a Beatus Vir and a Dixit Dominus.
single-movement model; others are in the three-movement form later adopted by Haydn, Beethoven
and others.
Among other instrumental compositions by Galuppi, Grove's Dictionary
lists sinfonias, overtures, trios and string quartets, and concerti for solo instruments and strings.
's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's
" refers to Galuppi and his work. It is not known whether Browning was thinking of any one piece by Galuppi; in Galuppi's time, the terms "toccata" and "sonata" were less clearly differentiated than they later became, and were used interchangeably. A number of pieces have been suggested as Browning's inspiration, but as Charles van den Borren wrote in The Musical Times, "every poet has the right to evade the prosaic minutiae of fact", and it is impossible to state with confidence that one Galuppi piece has more claim than another to be the inspiration for the poem. The poem inspired a 1989 setting, in modern idiom but with musical quotations from Galuppi's works, by the composer Dominick Argento
.
Browning's poem was followed by a few revivals of Galuppi works, and the composer's music was played at memorials for the poet, both in church and in the concert hall. But performances of Galuppi's music remained sporadic. La diavolessa was revived for the first time at the Venice Music Festival in 1952; II filosofo di campagna was revived in 1959, starring Ilva Ligabue
and Renato Capecchi
, and was staged at the Buxton Festival
in 1985.
on the Divine Art label, and by
Matteo Napoli on Naxos
. Choral works put on CD include the 1766 Messa per San Marco (2007), a cantata, L'oracolo del Vaticano, to words by Goldoni (2004), and motets (2001).
Burano
Burano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy; like Venice itself, it could more correctly be called an archipelago of four islands linked by bridges...
in the Venetian Republic
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in London and Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
, but his main base remained Venice, where he held a succession of leading appointments.
In his early career Galuppi made a modest success in opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
, but from the 1740s, together with the playwright and librettist Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
, he became famous throughout Europe for his comic operas in the new dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso is the name of a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of "dramma giocoso per musica" and is essentially a description of the text rather than the opera as a whole...
style. To the succeeding generation of composers he was known as "the father of comic opera". Some of his mature opere serie, for which his librettists included the poet and dramatist Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
, were also widely popular.
Throughout his career Galuppi held official positions with charitable and religious institutions in Venice, the most prestigious of which was head of music at the Doge
Doge of Venice
The Doge of Venice , often mistranslated Duke was the chief magistrate and leader of the Most Serene Republic of Venice for over a thousand years. Doges of Venice were elected for life by the city-state's aristocracy. Commonly the person selected as Doge was the shrewdest elder in the city...
's chapel, St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's Basilica
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture...
. In these various capacities he composed a large amount of religious music. He was also highly regarded as a virtuoso performer on and composer for keyboard instruments.
After Galuppi's death his music was largely forgotten. His name was brought back to public notice by the English poet Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
's 1855 poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's
A Toccata of Galuppi's
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" is a poem by Robert Browning, originally published in the 1855 collection Men and Women. The title refers to the fact that the speaker is either playing or listening to a toccata by the 18th-century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi.-Musical background:It is not known...
", but this did not restore the composer's work to the general repertoire. Some of Galuppi's pieces were occasionally performed in the 200 years after his death, but it was not until the last years of the 20th century that his works were extensively revived in live performance and on record.
Early years
Galuppi was born on the island of BuranoBurano
Burano is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy; like Venice itself, it could more correctly be called an archipelago of four islands linked by bridges...
in the Venetian Lagoon
Venetian Lagoon
The Venetian Lagoon is the enclosed bay of the Adriatic Sea in which the city of Venice is situated. Its name in the Venetian language, Laguna Veneta— cognate of Latin lacus, "lake"— has provided the international name for an enclosed, shallow embayment of saltwater, a lagoon.The Venetian Lagoon...
, and was widely known as "Il Buranello." His father was a barber, who also played the violin in theatre orchestras, and is believed to have been his son's first music teacher. The young Galuppi was educated at the Conservatorio degli Incurabili, and at the age of 15 he composed his first opera, Gli amici rivali, which was performed unsuccessfully at Chioggia
Chioggia
Chioggia is a coastal town and comune of the province of Venice in the Veneto region of northern Italy.-Geography:...
and equally unsuccessfully in Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
under the title La fede nell'incostanza.
Galuppi took lessons in composition and harpsichord
Harpsichord
A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...
from Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti
Antonio Lotti was an Italian composer of classical music.Lotti was born in Venice, although his father Matteo was Kapellmeister at Hanover at the time. In 1682, Lotti began studying with Lodovico Fuga and Giovanni Legrenzi, both of whom were employed at St Mark's Basilica, Venice's principal church...
, the chief organist at St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's Basilica
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture...
. From 1726 to 1728, he was harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola
Teatro della Pergola
The Teatro della Pergola is a historic opera house in Florence, Italy. It is located in the centre of the city on the Via della Pergola, from which the theatre takes its name...
in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. On his return to Venice in 1728, he produced a second opera, Gl'odi delusi dal sangue, written in collaboration with another Lotti pupil, Giovanni Battista Pescetti
Giovanni Battista Pescetti
Giovanni Battista Pescetti was an organist and composer. Born in Venice around 1704, he studied under Antonio Lotti for some time...
; it was well received when it was presented at the Teatro San Angelo
Teatro San Angelo
The Teatro San Angelo or Teatro Sant' Angelo was one a theatre in Venice which ran from 1677-1803.It was the last of the major Venetian theatres to be built in the 1650s-60s opera craze following Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo in 1654, Teatro San Samuele 1655, Teatro San Salvatore 1661, Teatro San...
. The collaborators followed it with an opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
, Dorinda, the next year. This, too, was modestly successful, and Galuppi began to receive commissions for operas and oratorios.
In 1740, Galuppi was appointed director of music at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, where his duties ranged from teaching and conducting to composing liturgical music and oratorios. In his first year of service at the Mendicanti, he composed 31 works: 16 motets, 13 settings of the Salve Regina
Salve Regina
The "Salve Regina", also known as the Hail Holy Queen, is a Marian hymn and one of four Marian antiphons sung at different seasons within the Christian liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. The Salve Regina is traditionally sung at Compline in the time from the Saturday before Trinity...
, and two psalm settings. Although he became internationally known as an operatic composer, he maintained a steady output of religious music throughout his career.
London and return to Venice
Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre, in Haymarket, City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the theatre...
. Of the 11 operas under his direction, three were his own compositions, Penelope, Scipion in Cartagen and Sirbace; a fourth was presented shortly after he left London to return to Venice. Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
attended one of these productions and was not greatly impressed. Galuppi also attracted attention as a keyboard virtuoso and composer. His contemporary, the English musicologist Charles Burney
Charles Burney
Charles Burney FRS was an English music historian and father of authors Frances Burney and Sarah Burney.-Life and career:...
, wrote that "Galuppi had had more influence on English music than any other Italian composer". However, in Burney's view Galuppi's skills were still immature during his spell in London. Burney wrote, "He now copied the hasty, light and flimsy style which reigned in Italy at this time, and which Handel's solidity and science had taught the English to despise."
On his return to Venice in May 1743, Galuppi returned to his employment with the Mendicanti, and to composing for the opera houses. The operatic fashion in Venice was on the point of changing from generally serious opera to a new style of comic opera, dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso
Dramma giocoso is the name of a genre of opera common in the mid-18th century. The term is a contraction of "dramma giocoso per musica" and is essentially a description of the text rather than the opera as a whole...
. Full-length comic operas from Naples and Rome were becoming fashionable; Galuppi adapted three of them for Venetian audiences in 1744, and the following year composed one of his own, La forza d’amore, which was only a mild success. He continued to compose serious operas, sometimes in uneasy partnership with the librettist Metastasio
Metastasio
Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
. The latter believed firmly that the music was there to serve the text rather than vice versa. He grumbled about Galuppi in 1749, "He is, I presume, an excellent composer for violins, for cellos and for voices, but he is an exceedingly bad one for poets. When he writes he thinks as much about the words as you do about being elected Pope ... As far as the public is concerned, he is appreciated by those who judge with their ears but not their souls." Nevertheless, their joint work prospered, and was staged in other countries. In Vienna, their Demetrio and Artaserse were great successes, the former breaking all local box-office records.
In May 1748 Galuppi was appointed vice-maestro of the Doge's chapel, St Mark's. In time this would lead to a large body of religious compositions, but for the present Galuppi was chiefly engaged in operatic work. It is not clear why he accepted the post at St Mark's. The musicologist Denis Arnold writes, "He was already a very successful opera composer and with his duties at the Mendicanti he must have had enough to do. The salary at St Mark's was only 120 ducats. ... At this time it was not a very distinguished cappella. The choir probably numbered about 30; but since their posts continued up to death, a fair proportion of the singers were old."
Galuppi was fortunate that when he turned once more to comic opera in 1749 he collaborated with Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Goldoni
Carlo Osvaldo Goldoni was an Italian playwright and librettist from the Republic of Venice. His works include some of Italy's most famous and best-loved plays. Audiences have admired the plays of Goldoni for their ingenious mix of wit and honesty...
. Although an established and eminent playwright by the time he worked with Galuppi, Goldoni was happy for his libretti to be subservient to the music. He was as warm in his regard for Galuppi as Metastasio was cold. Their first collaboration was Arcadia in Brenta followed by four more joint works within a year. They were enormously popular at home and abroad, and to meet the demand for new drammi giocosi and opere serie Galuppi had to resign his post at the Mendicanti in 1751. By the middle of the 1750s he was, in the words of his biographer Dale Monson, "the most popular opera composer anywhere".
For the next ten years, Galuppi remained in Venice, with occasional sorties elsewhere for commissions and premieres, producing a series of secular and religious works. His operas, serious or comic, were in demand across Europe. Of the British premiere of Il filosofo di campagna
Il filosofo di campagna
Il filosofo di campagna is a dramma giocoso per musica in 3 acts by composer Baldassare Galuppi. The opera uses an Italian language libretto by Carlo Goldoni. The work premiered at the Teatro San Samuele in Venice on 26 October 1754.-Roles:-External links:*...
in 1761 Burney wrote, "This burletta surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas that were performed in England, till the Buona Figliuola
La buona figliuola
La Cecchina, ossia La buona figliuola is an opera buffa in three Acts by Niccolò Piccinni. The libretto, by Carlo Goldoni, is based on Samuel Richardson's novel Pamela. This was Piccinni's most successful Italian opera. There was a sequel entitled La buona figliuola maritata by the same composer...
."
In April 1762 Galuppi was appointed to the leading musical post in Venice, maestro di capella of St Mark's, and in July of the same year he was also appointed maestro di coro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili, at whose school he had been educated. At St Mark's, he set about reforming the choir. He persuaded the Basilica authorities, the Procurators, to be more flexible in payments to singers, allowing him to attract performers with first-rate voices such as Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni
Gaetano Guadagni was an Italian mezzo-soprano castrato singer, most famous for singing the role of Orpheus at the premiere of Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice in 1762.- Career :...
and Gasparo Pacchiarotti.
Saint Petersburg
Early in 1764 Catherine the Great of Russia made it known through diplomatic channels that she wished Galuppi to come to Saint Petersburg as her court composer and conductor. There were prolonged negotiations between Russia and the Venetian authorities before the Senate of Venice agreed to release Galuppi for a three-year engagement at the Russian court. The contract required him to "compose and produce operas, ballets and cantatas for ceremonial banquets", at a salary of 4,000 roubles and the provision of accommodation and a carriage. Galuppi was reluctant, but Venetian officials assured him that his post and salary as maestro di cappella at St. Mark's were secure until 1768 as long as he supplied a Gloria and a Credo for the Basilica's Christmas mass each year.In June 1764 the senate granted Galuppi formal leave to go. He resigned his post at the Incurabili, made provision for his wife and daughters (who were to remain in Venice, while his son travelled with him), and set off for Russia. He made detours on his journey, visiting C.P.E. Bach and Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie , is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century...
, before arriving in Saint Petersburg on 22 September 1765.
For the empress's court, Galuppi composed new works, both operatic and liturgical, and revived and revised many others. He wrote two operas there, Il re pastore (1766) and Ifigenia in Tauride (1768), and two cantatas, La virtù liberata (1765) and La pace tra la virtù e la belezza, the latter to words by Metastasio. In addition to the work for which he had been contracted, Galuppi gave weekly recitals at the harpsichord, and sometimes conducted orchestral concerts. To improve standards he was a hard taskmaster to the court orchestra, but was from the outset enormously impressed by the court choir. He is reported to have exclaimed, "I'd never heard such a magnificent choir in Italy". Galuppi took pride in his prestigious appointments; the title page of his 1766 Christmas mass for St Mark's describes him as: "First Master and Director of all the Music for Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of all the Russias, etc. etc. and First Master of the Ducal Chapel of St. Mark's in Venice." In 1768, as had been agreed, he returned to Venice, detouring again on his journey, this time to visit Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse
Johann Adolph Hasse was an 18th-century German composer, singer and teacher of music. Immensely popular in his time, Hasse was best known for his prolific operatic output, though he also composed a considerable quantity of sacred music...
in Vienna.
Later years
On his return to Venice, Galuppi resumed his duties at St Mark's and successfully applied for reappointment at the Incurabili, holding the post until 1776, when financial constraints obliged all the ospedali to cut back their musical activities. In his later years he wrote more sacred than secular music. His output continued to be considerable in both quantity and quality. Burney, who visited him in Venice, wrote in 1771:Galuppi told Burney his definition of good music: "'vaghezza, chiarezza, e buona modulazione (beauty, clearness, and good modulation
Modulation (music)
In music, modulation is most commonly the act or process of changing from one key to another. This may or may not be accompanied by a change in key signature. Modulations articulate or create the structure or form of many pieces, as well as add interest...
)". Burney commented on Galuppi's prodigious workload that in addition to his duties at St Mark's and the Incurabili, "he has a hundred sequins a year as domestic organist to the family of Gritti, and is organist of another church, of which I have forgotten the name".
The last opera by Galuppi was La serva per amore, premiered in October 1773. In May 1782 he conducted concerts to mark a papal visit to Venice by Pius VI
Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI , born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, was Pope from 1775 to 1799.-Early years:Braschi was born in Cesena...
. Thereafter he continued to compose, despite declining health. His last completed work was the 1784 Christmas mass for St Mark's.
After a two-month illness, Galuppi died on 3 January 1785. He was buried in the church of S Vitale, and, much mourned, was commemorated by a requiem mass "solemnized in the church of S Stefano, paid for by professional musicians, at which the actors of the Teatro S Benedetto
Teatro San Benedetto
The Teatro San Benedetto was a theatre in Venice, particularly prominent in the operatic life of the city in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It saw the premieres of over 140 operas, including Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri, and was the theatre of choice for the presentation of opera seria until...
sang".
Operas
According to The Musical TimesThe Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
Galuppi, with 109 operas, was the sixth most prolific opera composer. His output was exceeded by his contemporaries Draghi
Antonio Draghi
Antonio Draghi was a Baroque composer. He possibly was the brother of Giovanni Battista Draghi.Draghi was born at Rimini in Italy, and was one of the most prolific composers of his time. His contribution to the development of Italian opera was particularly significant...
, Piccinni, Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello
Giovanni Paisiello was an Italian composer of the Classical era.-Life:Paisiello was born at Taranto and educated by the Jesuits there. He became known for his beautiful singing voice and in 1754 was sent to the Conservatorio di S. Onofrio at Naples, where he studied under Francesco Durante, and...
, Guglielmi
Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi
Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi was an Italian opera composer.Guglielmi was born in Massa. He received his first musical education from his father, and afterwards studied under Francesco Durante at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto at Naples...
, and the most prolific of all, with 166 operas, Wenzel Müller
Wenzel Müller
Wenzel Müller was an Austrian composer and conductor.Müller was born in Turnau. He studied with Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf and performed as a theatre musician in his youth. In 1786 he became Kapellmeister at the Theater in der Leopoldstadt in Leopoldstadt, Vienna...
; the only composer of later generations who approached his output was Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
100 years later. Galuppi did not hesitate to re-use his own (or, according to Metastasio, other composers') music, sometimes simply transplanting it and at other times reworking it substantially.
He was called "the father of comic opera" by musicians of the generation that followed him. The 21st-century editor and musicologist Francesco Luisi writes that although this description is not strictly accurate, the Galuppi–Goldoni operas were "a genuinely new beginning for musical theatre". In Luisi's view these works fundamentally changed the nature of opera by making the music part of the drama and not merely a decoration. Galuppi's contemporary Esteban de Arteaga wrote approvingly that the composer was able to "illumine the personalities of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves by selecting the most appropriate type of voice and style of singing".
As well as his general contribution to the essentials of comic opera, establishing the music as at least as important as the words, Galuppi's (and Goldoni's) more specific legacy to comic opera was the large-scale buffo finale to end the acts. Hitherto acts had ended in short choruses or ensembles, but the elaborate and substantial finales introduced by Galuppi and his librettist set the pattern for Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
and Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
.
Galuppi's music for his comic operas is described by Luisi as "largely syllabic … designed to enhance the intelligibility of the text … without impairing the fluidity of the melodic lines." In his opere serie he observed the convention of the da capo
Da capo
Da Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
aria, but used it sparingly in his comic works. In performances of his serious operas, leading soloists would as a matter of course interpolate arias written by other composers: the "opus integer" – a complete work not to be tampered with – was not the rule in 18-century opera seria.
Religious music
In his religious works, Galuppi mixed modern and antique styles. It was then the custom to incorporate into new church music the stile anticoStile antico
Stile antico, literally "ancient style", is a term describing music from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. It refers to a manner of composition which is historically conscious, as opposed to stile moderno...
with smooth vocal lines in the tradition of Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...
and a good deal of counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
. However, Galuppi applied the stile antico sparingly, and when he felt constrained to write contrapuntal music for the choir he would balance it with a bright modern style for the orchestral accompaniment. His masses and psalm settings for St Mark's exploit all the resources available to a modern composer in the mid-18th century, with choir supported by an orchestra of strings and some or all of flutes, oboes, bassoons, horns, trumpets and organ. As in his operas, Galuppi generally preferred syllabic settings, without elaborate melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
s.
Monson notes that the church music composed by Galuppi in Saint Petersburg had a lasting influence on Russian church music: "His 15 a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
works on Russian texts for the Orthodox liturgy proved to be a watershed. Their Italian, light contrapuntal style joined with native melodic idioms was continued by Traetta
Tommaso Traetta
Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta was an Italian composer.-Biography:Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari, near the top of the heel of the boot of Italy. He eventually became a pupil of the composer, singer and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and scored a first success with his...
and Sarti
Giuseppe Sarti
Giuseppe Sarti was an Italian opera composer.-Biography:He was born at Faenza. His date of birth is not known, but he was baptised on 1 December 1729. Some earlier sources say he was born on 28 December, but his baptism certificate proves the later date impossible...
and maintained by, among others, D.S. Bortnyans'ky, his pupil." Marina Ritzarev comments that the Italian Vincenzo Manfredini
Vincenzo Manfredini
Vincenzo Manfredini was an Italian composer, harpsichordist and a music theorist.-Biography:Manfredini was born in Pistoia, near Florence....
was Galuppi's predecessor as Russian court composer, and may have paved the way for his successor's innovations.
Some works long attributed to Galuppi were by Vivaldi. In 2003, a Nisi Dominus previously thought to be by Galuppi was reattributed to Vivaldi. The music of the latter, a generation earlier than Galuppi, went out of fashion after his death, and unscrupulous copyists and editors found that Galuppi's name on the title page increased a work's appeal. Other works in the Saxon State Collection have also been reattributed from Galuppi to Vivaldi, including a Beatus Vir and a Dixit Dominus.
Instrumental works
Galuppi was much admired for his keyboard music. Few of his sonatas were published in his lifetime, but many survive in manuscript. Some of them follow the ScarlattiDomenico Scarlatti
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...
single-movement model; others are in the three-movement form later adopted by Haydn, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
and others.
Among other instrumental compositions by Galuppi, Grove's Dictionary
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
lists sinfonias, overtures, trios and string quartets, and concerti for solo instruments and strings.
Legacy
Robert BrowningRobert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
's poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's
A Toccata of Galuppi's
"A Toccata of Galuppi's" is a poem by Robert Browning, originally published in the 1855 collection Men and Women. The title refers to the fact that the speaker is either playing or listening to a toccata by the 18th-century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi.-Musical background:It is not known...
" refers to Galuppi and his work. It is not known whether Browning was thinking of any one piece by Galuppi; in Galuppi's time, the terms "toccata" and "sonata" were less clearly differentiated than they later became, and were used interchangeably. A number of pieces have been suggested as Browning's inspiration, but as Charles van den Borren wrote in The Musical Times, "every poet has the right to evade the prosaic minutiae of fact", and it is impossible to state with confidence that one Galuppi piece has more claim than another to be the inspiration for the poem. The poem inspired a 1989 setting, in modern idiom but with musical quotations from Galuppi's works, by the composer Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento
Dominick Argento is an American composer, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera and choral music...
.
Browning's poem was followed by a few revivals of Galuppi works, and the composer's music was played at memorials for the poet, both in church and in the concert hall. But performances of Galuppi's music remained sporadic. La diavolessa was revived for the first time at the Venice Music Festival in 1952; II filosofo di campagna was revived in 1959, starring Ilva Ligabue
Ilva Ligabue
Ilva Ligabue was an Italian operatic soprano, best known for the role of Alice Ford in Falstaff, which she recorded twice, under Georg Solti and Leonard Bernstein ....
and Renato Capecchi
Renato Capecchi
Renato Capecchi was an Italian baritone, actor, and opera director.He sang in the Italian premiere of Shostakovich's The Nose and Prokofiev's War and Peace, and in the world premieres of Gian Francesco Malipiero's La donna è mobile, Giorgio Federico Ghedini's Billy Budd and Lord Inferno, and...
, and was staged at the Buxton Festival
Buxton Festival
The Buxton Festival is an annual summer festival of opera, music, and a literary series, held in Buxton, Derbyshire in England since it began in July 1979.-History:...
in 1985.
Recordings
From the late 20th century onwards an increasing number of Galuppi's works have been committed to disc. Among the opera recordings on CD or DVD are Il caffè di campagna (2011), La clemenza di Tito (2010), La diavolessa (2004), Didone abbandonata (2007), Il filosofo di campagna (1959 and 2001), Gusto primo, re di Svezia (2005), Il mondo alla roversa (2007), and L'Olimpiade (2009). Two series of recordings of the keyboard sonatas have been launched, by Peter SeivewrightPeter Seivewright
Peter Seivewright is a British pianist. After music studies at Oxford, he was a post-graduate student at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, where he studied piano with Ryszard Bakst.-Work with Galuppi's sonatas:...
on the Divine Art label, and by
Matteo Napoli on Naxos
Naxos Records
Naxos Records is a record label specializing in classical music. Through a number of imprints, Naxos also releases genres including Chinese music, jazz, world music, and early rock & roll. The company was founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann, a German-born resident of Hong Kong.Naxos is the largest...
. Choral works put on CD include the 1766 Messa per San Marco (2007), a cantata, L'oracolo del Vaticano, to words by Goldoni (2004), and motets (2001).
Free scores
- Harpsichord Sonata No. 18 in C minor, arranged for organ from the Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection.