Francesco Cavalli

Francesco Cavalli (This is traditionally said to be a portrait of the composer, though attribution is not certain.)

Francesco Cavalli (14 February 1602 – 14 January 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. His real name was Pietro Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron Federico Cavalli, a Venetian nobleman.

Life

Cavalli was born at Crema, Lombardy. He became a singer (soprano) at St Mark's Basilica in Venice in 1616, where he had the opportunity to work under the tutorship of Claudio Monteverdi. He became second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 maestro di cappella. He is chiefly remembered for his operas. He began to write for the stage in 1639 (Le nozze di Teti e di Peleo) soon after the first public opera house opened in Venice, the Teatro San Cassiano. He established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris from 1660 (he revived his opera Xerse) until 1662, producing his Ercole amante. He died in Venice at the age of 73.

Music and influence

Cavalli was the most influential composer in the rising genre of public opera in mid-17th-century Venice. Unlike Monteverdi's early operas, scored for the extravagant court orchestra of Mantua, Cavalli's operas make use of a small orchestra of strings and basso continuo to meet the limitations of public opera houses.

Cavalli introduced melodious arias into his music and popular types into his libretti. His operas have a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility, and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian grand opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti. Cavalli's operas provide the only example of a continuous musical development of a single composer in a single genre from the early to the late 17th century in Venice — only a few operas by others (e.g., Monteverdi and Antonio Cesti) survive. The development is particularly interesting to scholars because opera was still quite a new medium when Cavalli began working, and had matured into a popular public spectacle by the end of his career.

Cavalli wrote forty-one operas, twenty-seven of which are still extant, being preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (Library of St Mark) in Venice. Copies of some of the operas also exist in other locations. In addition, two last operas (Coriolano and Masenzio), which are clearly attributed to him, are lost, as well as twelve other operas that have been attributed to him, though the music is lost and attribution impossible to prove.

In addition to operas, Cavalli wrote settings of the Magnificat in the grand Venetian polychoral style, settings of the Marian antiphons, other sacred music in a more conservative manner – notably a Requiem Mass in eight parts (SSAATTBB), probably intended for his own funeral – and some instrumental music.^[1]

Performance history

Modern performances

Cavalli's music was revived in the twentieth century. The Glyndebourne production of La Calisto is an example.^[2] The discography is extensive and Cavalli has featured in BBC Radio 3's Composer of the Week series.^[1]

See also

• Music of Venice

References

Notes

Further reading

• Bukofzer, Manfred, Music in the Baroque Era. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1947. ISBN 0-393-09745-5
• Glixon, Beth L. and Jonathan E., Inventing the Business of Opera: The Impresario and His World in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. ISBN 0-19-515416-9
• Glover, Jane, Cavalli. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1978. ISBN 0-312-12546-1
• Rosand, Ellen, Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice. Berkeley:University of California Press, 1991. ISBN 0-520-06808-4
• Selfridge-Field, Eleanor, Venetian Instrumental Music, from Gabrieli to Vivaldi. New York: Dover Publications, 1994. ISBN 0-486-28151-5
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cavalli, Francesco". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

External links

• Free scores by Francesco Cavalli in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Rodrigo, Artaserse L. (9 March 2005). "Brief biography and discography" (in Italian). Retrieved 5 January 2009. 
• Free scores by Francesco Cavalli at the International Music Score Library Project