Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SCARLATTI SCARLATTI 243
of Scarlatti's life the two musicians regarded
each other with the affection of father and son.
Quantz visited Naples in 1725, and stayed with
Hasse, whom he begged to introduce him to
Scarlatti ; Scarlatti, however, merely replied to
Hasse's request, My son, you know that I
'
cannot endure players of wind instruments, for
they all blow out of tune.' Hasse succeeded
eventually in inducing him to receive Quantz,
who heard him play the harpsichord in a
'
learned manner '
; Scarlatti even accompanied
him in a solo and composed a couple of flutepieces
for him. He died on Oct. 24 of the same
year, and was buried in the church of Montesanto.
His epitaph is said to have been written
by Cardinal Ottoboni, and runs as follows :
HEIC - SITVS - EST
EQVES . ALEXANDER SCARLACTVS
VIR MODERATIONE • BENEFICIENTIA
PIETATE • INSIGNIS
MVSICES • INSTAVRATOR - MAXIMVS
QVI ' SOLIDIS - VETERVM - NVMERIS
NOVA • AC • MIRA - SVAVITATE
MOLLITIS
ANTIQVITATI GLORIAM . POSTERITATI
IMITANDI • SPEM • ADEMIT
OPTIMATIBVS • REGIBVSQ
APPRIME • CARVS
TANDEM . ANN05 - NATVM - LXVI - EXTINXIT
SVMMO . CVM - ITALIAE - DOLORE
IX • KAlAS • NOVEMbRIS . CIDIDCCXXV
MORS MODIS FLECTI NESCIA
Scarlatti is one of the most important figures,
not only in the history of opera, but in the
entire history of music. He is the most important
of that group of composers who succeeded
the first pioneers of the monodic style, based
upon the modern tonal system, and who
moulded and developed a musical idiom which
served as the language of musical expression
down to the days of Beethoven. In his early
work he is naturally under the influence of older
composers—Carissimi, Luigi Rossi, Stradella,
and Legrenzi ; indeed, the vague tradition of his
having studied in Parma might associate him
with the last-named composer as a pupil. His
first operas and his early cantatsis and church
music have, moreover, a certain harshness and
crudity which reveals the beginner ; Stradella's
operas and Rossi's cantatas, though old-fashioned
in their phraseology, are much more
mature and finished in their execution. It is
interesting to compare Scarlatti with Purcell,
who was his exact contemporary ; Purcell was
also under Italian influence, and we find in the
young Scarlatti many points of resemblance to
him, notably in the treatment of harmony,
both composers showing a tendency to think
polyphonically, though melodiously, and being
either indifferent to, or more probably taking a
positive pleasure in, the painful dissonances
resulting from their unbending logic. But with
his appointment as Maestro di Cappella at
Naples, Scarlatti modified his style. Here he
was forced to work with the utmost rapidity,
and to work for popular success. The fine detail
of his earlier work is swept aside ; the emious
forms, derived in part from the ground-bass, in
which he had once delighted, are abandoned ;
and he poured forth a long series of operas
in which the grace and vigour of his best
moments eventually degenerated into insipidity
and vulgarity. Three important features characterise
this somewhat unfortunate period of his
career. The da capo aria in ternary form (ABA),
though of coiurse not an invention of Scarlatti,
is now definitely established as the only type of
operatic aria, to the entire exclusion of all other
forms. The form of overture known as the
'
Italian ' overture was introduced in 1696 for
the revival of an earlier opera, Dal Male ' il
Bene,' and, though subject to much development,
remains constant in its main outlines to
the end of the Metastasio period of Italian
opera ; and lastly, the opera Olimpia Vendicata'
'
(1686) presents us with the earliest-known
'
example of accompanied recitative. From about
1686 to 1696 Scarlatti's operas have a facile
grace that is often far removed from triviality ;
the operas 'La Statira' (1690), 'La Rosaura'
(1690), and 'Pirro e Demetrio' (1694), which
was performed in London in an English adaptation
in 1708, were deservedly popular in their
day, and contain music which has even survived
down to our own. About 1697 a change comes
over Scarlatti's style, due in all probability to
the influence of Giovanni Bononcini,' whose
' Trionfo di Camilla ' was performed at Naples
in that year. Bononcini had a certain genius
for airs of a spirited martial type— 'L' esperto
nocebiero ' from ' Astarto ' is a good specimen
and no doubt they pleased the court, since they
were easy to understand, and even a viceroy
could beat time to them. Scarlatti, either on
his own initiative, or more probably in obedience
to orders from above, set to work on the same
lines, and from 1697 to 1702 turned out a
number of inferior operas, full of airs that are
either sugary and cloying, or pompous and
stilted. Their only redeeming features, as a
rule, are the comic scenes, which are trivial
but certainly humorous. Of this phase 'Eraclea
(1700), and 'Laodicea e Berenice' (1701) are
the best examples.
There can be little doubt that Scarlatti's most
serious work was being put into the operas which
he composed for Ferdinand de' Medici. His letters
give a detailed account of the composition of
'TurnoAricino' (1704), 'Lucio Manlio' (1705),
and 'II Gran Tamerlano' (1706). He speaks
with enthusiasm of Stampiglia's libretto to the
second of these, and appears to have considered
the opera the best that he had hitherto composed,
although each act was written in a fortnight.
The scores of these operas, however,
have entirely disappeared, and not even scattered
fragments of them can be traced. To