Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725) was an Italian
Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and
chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the
Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two
other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo
Scarlatti.
Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the
early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century,
with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and
the classical school of the 18th century. Scarla...(+)
Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 – 1725) was an Italian
Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and
chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the
Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two
other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo
Scarlatti.
Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the
early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century,
with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and
the classical school of the 18th century. Scarlatti's
style, however, is more than a transitional element in
Western music; like most of his Naples colleagues he
shows an almost modern understanding of the psychology
of modulation and also frequently makes use of the
ever-changing phrase lengths so typical of the Napoli
school.
In 1701, Pope Clement XI, taking his cue from his
predecessor, Pope Innocent XII, placed a ban on all
public operatic performance. While Clement's initial
excuse may have been the worsening political conflict
between Italy and Spain, the real reason lay in the
Church's moral conflict with the very idea of theatre,
which the papacy had condemned as a harbinger of sin
and damnation. It certainly did not help the Church's
image that members of its own clergy had been seen in
theaters openly enjoying themselves at the sides of
courtesans or castratos.
This "Opera Proibita" restricts itself to a brief
period in the early eighteenth century when opera was
temporarily banned, owing to its alleged fostering of
lewd and lascivious behavior in Italian society. During
this time, composers adapted by writing highly operatic
passages for the still legal form of oratorio, or
developing formats such as the Introduzione, a highly
florid kind of introduction to the Latin mass that was
eventually likewise struck down by the church. Although
these recitatives and arias from oratorios are taken
from composers ranging from George Frederick Handel and
Alessandro Scarlatti to Antonio Caldara and are
presented apart from the works from which they belong,
there is a certain unanimity of style among them. Opera
Proibita is sequenced for emotional impact rather than
in a historical context.
Scarlatti's "Mentre io godo in dolce oblio" from Il
Giardino di Rose, in which the singer sweetly rests
among the flowers as the orchestral writing
unmistakably simulates a gentle breeze they also seem
to have reacted to the Papal ban with a vengeance.
Although originally composed for period instruments
(possibly Lute and Voice), I created this arrangement
for Flute & Concert (Pedal) Harp.
SHEET MUSIC