Jommelli, Niccolò

JOMMELLI, NICCOLÒ. - Composer and maestro, b. at Aversa on 10 Sept. 1714, d. at Naples on 25 Aug. 1774. He first studied with Canon Muzzillo, choirmaster of the cathedral of Aversa, then, in 1730, in Naples, where his teachers included, among others, Durante, Feo, and Leo. In 1736 he was appointed maestro di cappella to the Marquis Del Vasto Avalos, and in 1740 he went to Rome, where he found a new protector: Heinrich Benedict, Duke of York. He then studied in Bologna with Fr. Martini.

In 1743 he was called to Venice, where he remained for 4 years as director of the Conservatorio degli Incurabili, producing much sacred music, among which were the oratorio La Betulia liberata on a text by Metastasio, a mass for 4 voices, a Laudate pueri, etc. In 1747 he returned to Rome, where in 1749 he wrote the oratorio La Passione di N. S. Gesù Cristo, dedicating it to his former protector, the Duke of York, who had meanwhile become a cardinal; through the benevolence of another influential patron, Cardinal Alessandro Albani, nephew of Clement XI, J. was appointed coadjutor maestro of the Cappella Giulia in St. Peter's (1749) and, shortly afterward, was called to the court of Empress Maria Theresa in Vienna, where he met Metastasio. In 1750 he returned to Rome and resumed his post at St. Peter's, composing sacred music and operas. He then carried on intense artistic activity as Kapellmeister at the court of Stuttgart (1753-68); in 1769 he took his leave from it to return to Italy and retire to Naples.

Not to speak of his vast operatic output (about 40 operas, of which 20 were for the court of Stuttgart and 5 for Vienna), we shall limit ourselves to giving a brief mention of his sacred compositions, which still lie unpublished in very numerous libraries throughout Europe. First of all, in addition to those already cited, we may recall the oratorios Isacco figura del Redentore, that is, the sacrifice of Abraham (1750), and Giuseppe viconosciuto, both on texts by Metastasio; 4 cantatas for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin and others; an Inno per la Sagra, an Inno per la festa dei ss. Pietro e Paolo, the psalm Confitebor (1750), the offertory Confirma hoc Deus, 6 antiphons for the Sagra, the psalm Laudate pueri for 4 sopranos, soloists and choirs (1752), the psalm In convertendo (1753), the Mognificat, the psalm Beatus vir, the Sequenza di Pasqua for 6 concerted voices, more than 2 masses, and his last work to remain famous, the Miserere for 2 sopranos with instruments (1773). The dramatic power that had given his compositions a tragic cir particularly expressive in the recitatives also vibrates in his works of religious inspiration, above all in the oratorios, for example, in the Passione, in which the Metastasian text, already set to music by various composers, takes on an entirely new effectiveness, an expressiveness of declamation of the highest dramatic pathos.

Luisa Cervelli