Pietro Alessandro Gaspare 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 ...(+)
Pietro Alessandro Gaspare 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. His early operas (Gli equivoci nel sembiante
1679; L'honestà negli amori 1680, containing the
famous aria "Già il sole dal Gange"; Il Pompeo 1683,
containing the well-known airs "O cessate di piagarmi"
and "Toglietemi la vita ancor," and others down to
about 1685) retain the older cadences in their
recitatives, and a considerable variety of neatly
constructed forms in their charming little arias,
accompanied sometimes by the string quartet, treated
with careful elaboration, sometimes with the continuo
alone. By 1686 he had definitely established the
"Italian overture" form (second edition of Dal male il
bene), and had abandoned the ground bass and the binary
form air in two stanzas in favour of the ternary form
or da capo type of air. His best operas of this period
are La Rosaura (1690, printed by the Gesellschaft für
Musikforschung), and Pirro e Demetrio (1694), in which
occur the arias "Le Violette", and "Ben ti sta,
traditor".
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Scarlatti).
Although originally created for Acompanied Voice, I
created this Arrangement of "Le Violette”, from the
Opera "Pirro e Demierio" for Viola & Piano.
