Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista (jōvän`nē bät-tēs`tä pārgōlā`zē), 1710–36, Italian composer of the Neapolitan school. Although he died at the age of 26, he is credited with masterpieces in two fields of music: La serva padrona (The Maid as Mistress, c.1733), an intermezzo, or short comic opera; and a setting of the Stabat Mater for treble voices and strings. His fame rests chiefly on the popularity of La serva padrona, although much of his best music is contained in two serious operas, Salustia (1732) and L'Olimpiade (1735).

Pergolesi, Giovanni Battista

(born Jan. 4, 1710, Jesi, Italy—died March 16, 1736, Pozzuoli) Italian composer. In 1732 he was appointed chapel master to a Neapolitan prince. His comic opera Lo frate 'nnamorato (1732) was followed in 1733 by an opera seria, which had a comic intermezzo that became his best-known work, La serva padrona. His health failing, he moved into a Franciscan monastery (1736), where he wrote his famous Stabat Mater and Salve Regina before dying at age 26. Traveling opera troupes took up La serva padrona, and in 1752 the success of a Paris production set off the controversy known as the guerre des bouffons (“war of the buffoons”), with musical forgers vying to produce spurious works of Pergolesi, leaving some uncertainty about the authenticity of works attributed to him.