Francesco Cavalli (1602-1676)
- Messa concertata a 8 'Musiche sacre concernenti messa, e salmi
concertati con istromenti, imni, antifone & sonate, a due, 3. 4. 5.
6. 8. 10. e 12. voci' (1656)
Performers: I Concertanti; Roberto Solci (conductor)
Further info: Cavalli - Messa e Magnificat
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Italian composer, organist and singer. Born to Italian composer and
organist Giovanni Battista Caletti (1577-c.1642), he attracted the
attention of the Venetian governor of Crema, Federico Cavalli, who
brought this remarkable boy soprano to Venice and placed him in the
chapel choir at San Marco on 18 December 1616. Francesco adopted his
patron’s surname. On 18 May 1620, he was appointed organist at the
Church of San Giovanni e Paolo. He resigned on 4 November 1630.
Apparently, he no longer needed the position because he had married
Maria Sozomeno on 7 January 1630, the widow of a wealthy Venetian,
Alvise Schiavina. In 1647, they rented a palazzo on the Grand Canal. She
died in 1652, leaving no children but most of her property to him, and
Cavalli remained in the house until his death. Her landholdings and
dowry of 1,200 ducats allowed the composer to invest early in the
nascent public operas of Venice, beginning on 14 April 1638, when he
signed an agreement to produce operas at the first public opera house,
Teatro San Cassiano. The first Cavalli opera, Le Nozze di Teti e di
Peleo, opened on 24 January 1639. At San Marco, Claudio Monteverdi had
been Cavalli’s maestro di cappella since the boy’s arrival in 1616.
Whether Cavalli studied formally with the master is unknown, but it
seems clear that Cavalli assisted with the composition of some details
of Monteverdi’s final opera L’Incoronazione di Poppea (1642). Earlier,
Cavalli had competed for the post of second organist at the basilica and
was appointed on 23 January 1639. Although his salary rose from 140
ducats to the maximum of 200 by 1653, higher than the first organist,
Massimiliano Neri, and in practice, he played the role of first
organist, he was not officially appointed first organist until 11
January 1665, after Neri’s departure.
By that point, Cavalli’s fame as an opera composer had been spread
across Europe by traveling opera companies performing his works. Egisto
provided Paris with one of its first experiences of music drama in 1646,
and it may have also reached Vienna. From 1652, he attracted
commissions from opera houses in other cities: Naples, Milan, and
Florence. His 1648 opera Giasone became so popular that it remained in
the traveling repertory until the end of the 17th century. Xerse and
Erismena were also staples of Venetian opera, all characterized by
faster, more complex, and more comic plots than were typical of the
court and academic operas earlier in the century. In April or May 1660,
Cavalli, who generally traveled little, went to Paris at the invitation
of Cardinal Mazarin to compose Ercole Amante. Preparations for the
spectacle delayed production, and in the interim, Cavalli’s 1654 opera
Xerse was given in the Louvre with the title role changed from soprano
to baritone, the original three acts redistributed to five, and with new
entrées de ballet composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Cavalli returned to
Venice in summer 1662. On 28 November 1668, he succeeded Giovanni
Rovetta as maestro di cappella at San Marco and spent his last years
concentrating on sacred music, publishing his Vesperi in 1675. He was
buried in the church of San Lorenzo in Venice. As a composer, his more
than 30 operas dominated the Venetian musical theater from 1639 to 1669
and defined more than anyone what is meant by “Venetian opera.” He also
published collections of sacred music. Francesco Cavalli was the most
performed, and perhaps the most representative, composer of opera in the
quarter-century after Monteverdi and was a leading figure, as both
composer and performer, in Venetian musical life.
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