Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Baroque · 1710–1736
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi packed his whole career into about six years. Born in Jesi, Italy, in 1710 and trained in Naples, he wrote operas, church music, and instrumental works before dying of tuberculosis in 1736, at just 26, in a monastery near Naples.
Two works kept his name alive. La serva padrona, a short comedy about a maid who schemes her way into marrying her employer, was written to be performed between the acts of a serious opera; when a traveling troupe played it in Paris years after his death, it set off a famous public quarrel about whether Italian comic opera was better than French tragedy. And in his final months he completed the Stabat Mater, a setting of a medieval poem about Mary at the cross, for two voices and strings. It was copied and reprinted across Europe for the rest of the century.
Start with the Stabat Mater; its opening duet is one of the most affecting things in Baroque music. Then try La serva padrona.
33 works in the catalog, across 3 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Concerto for Flute and 2 Violins in D
- Concerto for Flute and 2 Violins in G
- Harpsichord Sonata in A
- Organ Sonata in F
- Organ Sonata in G
- Violin Concerto in B flat major
Stage
- La serva padrona
- Adriano in Siria Opera
- L'olimpiade Opera
- Livietta e Tracollo
- Lo frate 'nnamorata
Vocal
- Stabat mater, for soprano, alto, and strings
- Chi non ode e chi non vede
- Confitebor tibi Domine
- Dalsigre, ahi mia Dalsigre, chamber cantata for soprano and continuo, op. 2, no. 2
- Dixit Dominus
- Laudate pueri Dominum
- Luce degli occhi mei, chamber cantata for soprano, strings and continuo, op. 2, no. 3
- Magnificat in C
- Manca la guida al piè
- Mass in G
- Missa S.Emidio
- Missa solemnis
- Orfeo, chamber cantata for soprano, strings and continuo, op. 2, no. 4, "Nel chiuso centro"
- Quando corpus morietur, amen
- Questo è il piano, questo è il rio, chamber cantata for alto and strings
- Salve regina in A minor, for soprano, strings and organ
- Salve Regina in C minor
- Salve regina in C minor, for soprano, strings and organ
- Salve regina in C minor, for soprano and strings
- Salve Regina in C minor for 2 High Voices
- Segreto tormento, chamber cantata for soprano, strings and continuo, op. 2, no. 1
- Sul mio cor, for voice
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