PERGOLESI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA. - Musician, b. Jan. 4, 1710 at Jesi, d. at Pozzuoli on March 16 or 17, 1736. After learning the first rudiments of music in his native city, in 1726, thanks to the help of Marquis Pianetti, he studied at the Conservatorio dei poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples.
Among his first works: the oratorio La morte di s. Giuseppe and the first Salve Regina in C minor, for soprano, with accompaniment of quartet and harpsichord (1730), followed by the other oratorio La conversione di s. Guglielmo di Aquitania, sung in the summer of 1731 in the cloister of S. Agnello Maggiore in Naples, in which the Pergolesian personality finds an expressive effectiveness already entirely its own in the painting of characters and in the truth of the dramatic accents of the individual personages. From 1731, with the Solustia, he began that glorious theatrical activity of his which culminated in the Serva padrona (1733), a gem of opera buffa. On May 20, 1734, he had a mass of his performed in Rome (S. Lorenzo in Lucina) for the feast of St. John Nepomucene. In Naples he finished and conducted several other works and then was again in Rome, where the failure of the Olimpiade (his masterpiece among the serious operas, 1735) grieved him deeply. Returned to Naples, he was appointed organist of the Royal Chapel, but tuberculosis was by then undermining him; he still conducted the performance of the Flaminio (1735) and withdrew to the Franciscans at Pozzuoli, where he wrote the famous Stabat and where he died in poverty and solitude. Some have wished to see in Pergolesi's church music, especially in the motets, a cold, slovenly and hybrid mannerism, but Fellerer (Der Palestrinastil und seine Bedeutung in der vokalen Kirchenmusik des 18. Jahrh., Augsburg 1929) illuminates with the wisdom of the researcher the compositional technique of P., which he places in a singular light in the history of Palestrinian imitation. The sacred production, together with the chamber and instrumental music, does not give us a lesser P., but a P. who, though an expert contrapuntist, knows how to shun the schemes of conventionalism and the stylistic habits of his time in order to draw from the sonorous grandiosities of Palestrinian vocal writing throbs of intimate and fervent religiosity.
Among the numerous sacred works, after the oratorios (let a third be recalled, Per la nascita del Redentore, whose score is today untraceable), the Masses, the Salve Regina, and the Stabat stand out. Of the four Masses, in D major: for 4 voices with instruments and organ, in D major for 10 voices and 2 choirs with instruments and organ, in F major for 5 voices with instruments, and in F major: for 10 voices and 2 choirs with accompaniment of 2 orchestras and organ, the one that pleased most for the pathetic grace of the melody and the magnificent grandeur of the lines, and which was repeated for years at the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, is the Messa in F major, composed perhaps in Rome in 1734. Among the 4 Salve Regina, the one in F minor attains truly remarkable sublimity of art, so much so that Della Corte (v. bibl.) places it, together with the Stabat, alongside the Bach cantatas and Geistliche Lieder, for the gentle tenderness of the accents that flow from the soul invoking the Savior. To complete the picture of Pergolesi's vast output, mention should be made of psalms, magnificat, antiphons, responsories, motets, cantatas, chamber arias, sonatas, symphonies, concertos, as well as didactic works, such as the Solfeggi for 2 and 3 voices, which are preserved in autograph at the Conservatory of Naples, and the Solfeggio with piano accompaniment, harpsichord exercises, etc.
Bibliography6 works
Luisa Cervelli