Scarlatti, Alessandro - "Mentr'io Godo in Dolce Oblio" for Viola & Harp Viola and Harp |
Composer : | Scarlatti, Alessandro (1660 - 1725) | ||
Instrumentation : | Viola and Harp | ||
Style : | Baroque | ||
Arranger : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||
Publisher : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL | ||
Copyright : | Public Domain | ||
Added by magataganm, 05 Nov 2014 Alessandro Scarlatti (1660 -- 1725) was an Italian Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti. Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century, with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and the classical school of the 18th century. Scarlatti's style, however, is more than a transitional element in Western music; like most of his Naples colleagues he shows an almost modern understanding of the psychology of modulation and also frequently makes use of the ever-changing phrase lengths so typical of the Napoli school. In 1701, Pope Clement XI, taking his cue from his predecessor, Pope Innocent XII, placed a ban on all public operatic performance. While Clement's initial excuse may have been the worsening political conflict between Italy and Spain, the real reason lay in the Church's moral conflict with the very idea of theatre, which the papacy had condemned as a harbinger of sin and damnation. It certainly did not help the Church's image that members of its own clergy had been seen in theaters openly enjoying themselves at the sides of courtesans or castratos. This "Opera Proibita" restricts itself to a brief period in the early eighteenth century when opera was temporarily banned, owing to its alleged fostering of lewd and lascivious behavior in Italian society. During this time, composers adapted by writing highly operatic passages for the still legal form of oratorio, or developing formats such as the Introduzione, a highly florid kind of introduction to the Latin mass that was eventually likewise struck down by the church. Although these recitatives and arias from oratorios are taken from composers ranging from George Frederick Handel and Alessandro Scarlatti to Antonio Caldara and are presented apart from the works from which they belong, there is a certain unanimity of style among them. Opera Proibita is sequenced for emotional impact rather than in a historical context. Scarlatti's "Mentre io godo in dolce oblio" from Il Giardino di Rose, in which the singer sweetly rests among the flowers as the orchestral writing unmistakably simulates a gentle breeze they also seem to have reacted to the Papal ban with a vengeance. Although originally composed for period instruments (possibly Lute and Voice), I created this arrangement for Viola & Concert (Pedal) Harp |
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