Introduction
The world is full of music which may be heard everywhere and it is impossible to imagine life without music. There are a lot of different styles and directions in music. Modern music differs greatly from the music which was some years ago as modern technologies allow creating electronic music. Modern tendencies were unknown to the composers of the XVII – XVIII centuries, but still, music developed, and more and more new types and styles of music appeared, which broadened the world of music by innovations. Alessandro Scarlatti was one of the composers of Baroque times, who managed to create a lot of pieces of music and develop the music world through innovations.
Biography
Alessandro Scarlatti is an Italian composer, who was born in 1659, at Trapani in Sicily, but it is only one of the versions as there are no documents about the certain date of his birth. The early life of the composer remains unknown. There are some assumptions that he was taught by Carissimi and the evidence of this are the early compositions of Alessandro Scarlatti. It is also impossible to find out the first composition of Scarlatti as most of them did not survive, but the earliest, which has survived till our times, is the “Gli Equivoci” (1679) (Dent, 2008). The same year, 1679, the career as Maestro di cappella to the Queen of Sweden in Rome began for the composer (Smith, 1999). His next step was the Naples where he went in 1684 as “the master of the royal chapel” (Scarlatti, 2007, p. 43011), and being there he worked under the composing the operas “for the royal palace and chamber music for aristocracy” (Scarlatti, 2007, p. 43011). The composer continued his traveling for a long time, he continued working at the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in 1703 and then returned to Naples in 1708. There is the information that Handel, a great German composer, was in Italy between 1706 and 1710 and studied with Scarlatti (Smith, 1999).
Alessandro Scarlatti is a great composer of his time who continues to be famous during our times. His contribution to the world treasury comprises about 115 operas, moreover, oratorios, madrigals, cantatas (many solos), concerti Grossi, Masses, harpsichord, and chamber pieces were composed by Scarlatti. The Italian composer is often called the “father of Neapolitan opera” (Smith, 1999), which is often called the opera seria. One of the main defining features of Scarlatti’s Neapolitan operas is that these pieces are bright and emotional than deep emotional. The main voice accompaniment is thrown upon the string quartet in the compositions of Neapolitan operas, which is the main feature of the opera seria. “Gli Equivoci”, “Mitridate Eupatore”, “Pompeo” and others are examples of Alessandro Scarlatti’s works (Dent, 2008).
Conclusion
In conclusion, Alessandro Scarlatti is a great Italian composer whose operas entertain people till our times. His contribution id the classical music is invaluable even though a lot of his compositions did not survive till our time. The creation of the Neapolitan school as the type of opera music is considered his best contribution to world music. The records of the composer may listen online, the examples are Sonata for cello and b.c. No.1 and Aria: “Se tu della mia morte” which were found online (Scarlatti, 2009).
Reference List
- Scarlatti, A. (2009). Karadar Classical music. Web.
- Dent E. J. (2008). Alessandro Scarlatti: His Life and Works. UK: BiblioBazaar, LLC.
- Scarlatti, A. (2007). In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
- Smith, T. A. (1999). Alessandro Scarlatti 1660-1725. Web.