Alessandro Stradella (3 April 1639 25 February 1682) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composer of the middle
BaroqueBaroque music describes a style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical era...
. He was born in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, and was murdered in
GenoaGenoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000...
.
Not much is known about his early life, but he was from an
aristocraticThe aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in society, who traditionally have land, money, and power. They are often members of a hereditary nobility that derives its stature from a lineage traceable to the original inhabitants or rulers of a region...
family, educated at
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20, being commissioned by Queen
Christina of SwedenChristina , later known as Christina Alexandra and sometimes Countess Dohna, was Queen regnant of Sweden from 1632 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg...
. In 1667 he moved to Rome where he composed copiously, mostly sacred music, and began to live a dissolute life.
Alessandro Stradella (3 April 1639 25 February 1682) was an
ItalianItaly , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia. Italy shares its northern, Alpine boundary with France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia...
composer of the middle
BaroqueBaroque music describes a style of European classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1750. This era is said to begin in music after the Renaissance and was followed by the Classical era...
. He was born in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
, and was murdered in
GenoaGenoa is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria. The city has a population of about 610,000 and the urban area has a population of about 900,000...
.
Not much is known about his early life, but he was from an
aristocraticThe aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in society, who traditionally have land, money, and power. They are often members of a hereditary nobility that derives its stature from a lineage traceable to the original inhabitants or rulers of a region...
family, educated at
BolognaBologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of northern Italy...
, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20, being commissioned by Queen
Christina of SwedenChristina , later known as Christina Alexandra and sometimes Countess Dohna, was Queen regnant of Sweden from 1632 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden and his wife Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg...
. In 1667 he moved to Rome where he composed copiously, mostly sacred music, and began to live a dissolute life. With a friend he attempted to embezzle money from the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. Unfortunately his numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good.
In 1677 he went to
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman as the music tutor to his mistress. As might be expected, Stradella was shortly involved with her, and had to flee when their liaison was found out; but this time the nobleman hired a gang of thugs to follow him and kill him, which they narrowly failed to do. (In one account, they heard him in performance and forgave him for the sake of his talent.) Stradella went next to Genoa, where he wrote
operaOpera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s and
cantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment and often containing more than one movement.-Historical context:...
s; unfortunately he was again involved in an affair with a poorly-chosen woman, and this time a hired killer caught up with him at the Piazza Banchi and stabbed him to death.
Stradella was an extremely influential composer at the time, though his fame was eclipsed in the next century by
CorelliArcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music.-Biography:Corelli was born at Fusignano, Romagna, in the current-day province of Ravenna. Little is known about his early life. His master on the violin was Giovanni Battista Bassani...
,
VivaldiAntonio Lucio Vivaldi , nicknamed il Prete Rosso , was a baroque composer and Venetian priest, as well as a famous virtuoso violinist, born and raised in the Republic of Venice...
and others. Probably his greatest significance is in originating the
concerto grossoThe concerto grosso is a form of baroque music in which the musical material is passed between a small group of soloists and full orchestra ....
: while Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under this title, Stradella clearly uses the format earlier in one of his
Sonate di viole. Since the two knew each other, a direct influence is likely.
Stradella wrote at least six operas including a full-length comic opera. He also wrote numerous cantatas and oratorios. Stradella composed 27 separate instrumental pieces, most for strings and basso continuo, and typically in the
sonata da chiesaSonata da chiesa is an instrumental composition dating from the Baroque period, generally consisting of four movements. More than one melody was often used, and the movements were ordered slow–fast–slow–fast with respect to tempo...
format.
His colorful life and bloody death clearly made a good story for an opera of its own. Three separate composers made operas out of his life, the most famous being
Friedrich von FlotowFriedrich Adolf Ferdinand, Freiherr von Flotow was a German composer. He is chiefly remembered for his opera Martha, which was popular in the 19th century....
with his
Alessandro Stradella (
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
, 1844).
American novelist F. Marion Crawford also produced a highly romanticized novel of Stradella's affair and flight from Venice, titled
Stradella (
MacmillanMacmillan Publishers Ltd, also known as The Macmillan Group, is a privately-held international publishing company owned by Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. It has offices in 41 countries worldwide and operates in more than thirty others....
1909).
Recordings
- Stradella: Il barcheggio - Valentina Valente; Marco Lazzara
Marco Lazzara is an Italian countertenor who sings a wide-ranging repertoire from baroque composers to those of the 20th century and has performed in a number of notable premieres and revivals of rarely performed operas...
; Giovanni Dagnino; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor) Label: Bongiovanni GB 2102
- Stradella: Moro per amore - Mark Beasley; Marco Lazzara; Roberta Invernizzi
Roberta Invernizzi is an Italian soprano. She originally studied piano and double bass before turning to singing. She specialises in early music from the baroque and classical period of music....
; Riccardo Ristori; Silvia Piccollo; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor). Label: Bongiovanni GB 2153
- Stradella: Esule dalle sfere - Roberta Invernizzi; Marco Lazzara; Riccardo Ristori; Mario Nuvoli; Alessandro Stradella Consort; Estevan Velardi (conductor). Label: Bongiovanni GB 2165
External links