Giovanni Battista Pescetti (c.1704-1766) - Sonata (I, E-Dur) per il Cembalo (1739)
Performers: Rolf Basten (cembalo)
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Italian composer and harpsichordist. He studied with Antonio Lotti,
organist at S Marco, Venice, and opera composer. He became friendly with
his fellow student Baldassare Galuppi with whom he collaborated in
writing and revising operas. An early mass by Pescetti impressed J.A.
Hasse. From 1725 to 1732 he supplied operas to various Venetian
theatres. In April 1736 he appeared as a harpsichordist in London where,
the following autumn, he replaced Porpora as director of the Opera of
the Nobility, the rival company to Handel’s. After its collapse Pescetti
remained in London, contributing operas or arias in pasticcios; he also
published (1739) a set of keyboard sonatas, which include arrangements
of the overture and arias in his opera La conquista del velo d’oro. It
is likely that Pescetti left London around 1745, when the rebellion of
Prince Charles and the Highland clans made the city inhospitable to
Catholic Italians. In 1747 he returned to providing operas in Venice. On
27 August 1752 he applied for the position of second organist at S
Marco, and finally obtained the appointment on 16 May 1762. Pescetti’s
opera arias are notable for their easily singable lines, simple
accompaniments, short, clearly articulated phrases and restricted
harmonic vocabulary. He was nevertheless capable of fugal writing, as in
his overture to La conquista del velo d’oro, in several of his sonatas
and in his church music. Burney faulted him for a lack of fire and of
fertility of invention.
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