Francesco Cavalli

"Francesco Cavalli" (February 14 1602 – January 14 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron, a Venetian nobleman.

Life

Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy. He became a singer at St Mark's in Venice in 1616, second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 "maestro di cappella". He is, however, chiefly remembered for his operas.

He began to write for the stage in 1639 ("Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo") soon after the first public opera house opened in Venice. He established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris in 1660 where he revived his opera "Xerxes". He visited Paris again in 1662, producing his "Ercole amante". He died in Venice at the age of 73.

Music and influence

Cavalli was the most influential composer in the rising genre of public opera in mid-17th century Venice. Unlike Monteverdi's early operas, scored for the extravagant court orchestra of Mantua, Cavalli's operas make use of a small orchestra of strings and "basso continuo" to meet the limitations of public opera houses.

Cavalli introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his "libretti". His operas have a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility, and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian grand opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti. Cavalli's operas provide the only example of a continuous musical development of a single composer in a single genre from the early to the late 17th century in Venice — only a few operas by others (e.g. Monteverdi and Antonio Cesti) survive. The development is particularly interesting to scholars because opera was still quite a new medium when Cavalli began working, and had matured into a popular public spectacle by the end of his career.

Cavalli wrote thirty-three operas, twenty-seven of which are still extant, being preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Library of St Mark) at Venice. Copies of some of the operas also exist in other locations. In addition, nine other operas have been attributed to him, though the music is lost and attribution impossible to prove.

In addition to operas, Cavalli wrote settings of the "Magnificat" in the grand Venetian polychoral style, settings of the Marian antiphons, other sacred music in a more conservative manner (notably a Requiem Mass in eight parts [SSAATTBB] , probably intended for his own funeral), and some instrumental music.

Works list

Operas

References and further reading

*Bukofzer, Manfred, "Music in the Baroque Era". New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
*Glixon, Beth L. and Jonathan E., "Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0195154169
*Glover, Jane, "Cavalli". London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1978. ISBN 0-312-12546-1
*Rosand, Ellen, "Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice". Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. ISBN 0-520-06808-4
*Selfridge-Field, Eleanor, "Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi." New York: Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
*1911

External links

*ChoralWiki
* [http://www.haendel.it/compositori/cavalli.htm Brief biography and discography] it icon
*IckingArchive|idx=Cavalli|name=Francesco Cavalli

ee also

*Teatro San Cassiano
*Music of Venice