Sala, Nicola

views updated

Sala, Nicola

Sala, Nicola , Italian teacher, music theorist, and composer; b. Tocco-Gaudio, near Benevento, April 7, 1713; d. Naples, Aug. 31, 1801. He was a pupil of Fago, Abos, and Leo at the Cons. della Pietà de’ Turchini in Naples (1732–40), and apparently taught there for many years, serving as secondo maestro (1787–93) and primo maestro (1793–99). He publ. the celebrated theoretical work Regole del contrappunto prattico (3 vols., 1794; reprinted by Choron in Paris, 1808, as Principii di composizione delle scuole d’Italia). He brought out several operas: Vologeso (Rome, 1737), La Zenobia (Naples, Jan. 12, 1761), Demetrio (Naples, Dec. 12, 1762), Merope (Naples, Aug. 13, 1769), an oratorio, Giuditta (1780), masses, litanies, and other religious works.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire