Classical Music | Ensemble Music

Pergolesi received some of his musical training from the Maestro di cappella at Iesi, Francesco Santi, and also some instruction on the violin from one Francisco Mondini, the public music master. A bit later, (sometime between 1720 and 1724) he was sent to the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesu Christo in Naples, where he learned composition from Gaetano Greco, the maestro di cappella of the conservatory. Pergolesi did not pay tuition or room and board while at the conservatory because his work as a singer in the choir and as a violinist constituted payment "in kind." At that time, Pergolesi's improvisations on the violin were described as follows:

Chromatic passages rising and falling, new and graceful gruppeti, appoggiaturas of a new kind with such melody that the very companions who were studying the instrument together with him remained enchanted by them and sometimes were constrained to suspend their study, surprised by the harmony produced by their colleague.

Pergolesi's greatest claim to fame lies in his advocacy of comic opera—his most famous work in this genre is "La Serva Padrona," which was first performed in Naples in September of 1733. On tonight's program, we hear the sinfonia (the Italian counterpart to the French overture) from "Lo frate 'nnamurato," his first "commedia musicale," which came to light in September of 1732, just less than a year before "La Serva Padrona." The multi-sectional opera sinfonia was, at the time, already metamorphosizing into the multi-movement pieces that are known as symphonies.      David Schrader