 | Cavalli, Francesco - Aria: "Ombra Mai Fu" from "Il Xerse" for Oboe & Piano Oboe, Piano (keyboard) |
Vidéo :
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| Composer : | Cavalli, Francesco (1602 - 1676) | ||
| Instrumentation : | Oboe, Piano (keyboard) | ||
| Style : | Baroque | ||
| Arranger : Publisher : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||
| Copyright : | Public Domain | ||
| Added by magataganm, 30 Oct 2020 Francesco Cavalli (1602 – 1676) was an Italian composer of the early Baroque period. He took the name "Cavalli" from his patron, Venetian nobleman Federico Cavalli. 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. 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. He 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 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. His opera "Xerse" (specifically, a dramma per musica) about Xerxes I. The libretto was written by Nicolò Minato, and was later set by both Giovanni Bononcini and George Frideric Handel. Minato's plot outline is loosely based on Book 7 of Herodotus's Histories. The opera, consisting of a prologue and three acts, was first performed at Venice on 12 January 1654, at the Teatro SS. Giovanni e Paolo. The opera was highly popular in Italy, not least due to Cavalli's setting of "Ombra mai fu" (later more famously set by Handel): nine different revivals were given across Italy while Cavalli lived. In 1660 Cavalli was persuaded to travel to France to produce a new opera for the wedding of Louis XIV in Paris. He soon became entangled in court intrigue which ensured that the projected opera, Ercole amante, was not ready in time and had to be replaced by a revival of Xerse at the last minute. Xerse was given with ballets by Cavalli's rival Jean-Baptiste Lully, a Florentine who had become the official court composer in France. The whole spectacle lasted eight or nine hours and the French audience had little appreciation for an opera in a foreign language, preferring Lully's dance music. Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Cavalli) Although originally written for Accompanied Soloist, I created this Interpretation of the Aria: "Ombra Mai Fu" from the Opera "Il Xerse" for Oboe & Piano. | |||
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