PERGOLESI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA

Baroque composer of the Neapolitan school; b. Iesi (The Marches), Italy, Jan. 4, 1710; d. Pozzuoli (near Naples), March 17, 1736. Between 1720 and 1724 he attended the Conservatorio di Poveri di Gesù Cristo at Naples. His brief but successful career began in the summer of 1731 with the production of a dramma sacro, La Conversione di San Guglielmo, and thereafter his finest works were operas and sacred music. The popularity of his music caused many anonymous works to be attributed to him; thus the majority of extant compositions carrying his name are spurious. To the early Pergolesi period belong a Mass in D major, a Dominus ad adjuvandum me, and the psalms Dixit Dominus and Confitebor, probably commissioned by the city of Naples toward the end of 1732. In May 1734 he conducted his two-choir Mass in F major (commissioned by Duke Carafa Maddaloni and rewritten several times) in San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome. In content and quality these works were far superior to the general music of that period. Long al fresco -like counterpoint or contrapuntal phrases alternate with concerto passages for solo and choir, solo ensembles, and arias, in which the unusual melodic talents of Pergolesi are effectively expressed.

Pergolesi's Masses consist only of Kyrie and Gloria. To the late Pergolesi period belong the psalm Laudate pueri, in which he finds a new form of expression in the exchange between solos and choir, and probably also the very popular Stabat Mater for two solo voices and strings and the Salve Regina in C minor for soprano and strings. All are outstanding examples of the sentimental style in Catholic sacred music. At the end of 1735 Pergolesi was forced by serious illness (probably bone tuberculosis) to retire.

Bibliography: Opera omnia, ed. f. caffarelli, 5 v. (Rome 1939–42), performing edition. g. radiciotti, G. B. Pergolesi (Rome 1910; 2d ed. Milan 1935). a. della corte, Pergolesi (Turin 1936). w. kahl, "Pergolesi und sein Stabat Mater," Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch 35 (1951) 84–97. h. hucke, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, ed. f. blume (Kassel-Basel 1949–) 10:1048–64. p. h. lang, Music in Western Civilization (New York 1941). p. m. young, The Choral Tradition (New York 1962). h. e. beckwith, "Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and the Chamber Cantata" (Ph.D. diss. University of Maryland, 1983). f. degrada, ed., Studi Pergolesiani: Prolusione el Convegna "Lo stato attuale degli studi su Pergolesi e il suo tempo" (Jesi, 18–19 novembre 1983) 2v. (Florence 1986). h. hucke and m. e. paymer, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians ed. s. sadie (New York 1980) 14:394–400. d. e. monson, "Adriano in Siria, " International Dictionary of Opera 2 v., ed. c. s. larue (Detroit 1993); "La Serva Padrona, " ibid. m. e. paymer, "The Instrumental Music Attributed to Giovanni Battista Pergolesi: A Study in Authenticity" (Ph.D. diss. City University of New York, 1977). d. m. randel, ed., The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music (Cambridge 1996). n. slonimsky, ed. Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (8th ed. New York 1992).

[h. hucke]