Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (redirected from Gianbattista Pergolesi)

Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista 

(real surname Draghi; pseudonym derived from the name of the city of the family’s origin). Born Jan. 4, 1710, in Jesi, near Ancona; died Mar. 17, 1736, in Pozzuoli, near Naples. Italian composer and representative of the Neapolitan school of opera.

Pergolesi’s first opera, Salustia, was staged in Naples in 1731. Pergolesi wrote opere serie, oratorios, and comic intermezzi, which were staged between the acts of opere serie. These intermezzi were subsequently performed independently as comic operas. In 1733, Pergolesi wrote the intermezzo La serva padrona for II prigioner superbo, an opera seria. La serva padrona was one of the first opere buffe and is still one of the best. Pergolesi also composed trio sonatas, operatic overtures, and other works, all of which anticipated the sudden stylistic changes that took place in Italian art in the mid-18th century. His religious work Stabat Mater (1735) is widely known.

WORKS

Recente è l’edizione dell’Opera omnia, vols. 1–25 [26–27], Rome, 1936— 42.

REFERENCES

Materialy i dokumenty po istorii muzyki, vol. 2. Edited by M. V. Ivanov-Boretskii. Moscow, 1934.
Della Corte, A. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Turin, 1936.
Margadonna, M. Pergolesi. [Milan, 1961.]