Alessandro Scarlatti

2 May 1660, Palermo – 24 October 1725, Naples

Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti 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.

The production at Rome of his opera Gli equivoci nel sembiante (1679) gained him the support of Queen Christina of Sweden (who at the time was living in Rome), and he became her maestro di cappella. In February 1684 he became maestro di cappella to the viceroy of Naples and here he produced a long series of operas, remarkable chiefly for their fluency and expressiveness, as well as other music for state occasions.

20 Keyboard Sonatas Alice Ader piano

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.

More on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alessandro_Scarlatti

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFjxmHqNtyA

Alessandro Scarlatti – Stabat Mater

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