Dear Friends,

I heard some music by Alessandro Stradella this week and did a little research and so decided to start this week's newsletter with a piece about him. He was from Tuscany.

Following the Tuscan theme here I have included a bit of information about two interesting places in Tuscany.

Alessandro Stradella Not much is known about his early life, but, born in Bologna, Alessandro Stradella was from a Tuscan aristocratic family, educated at Rome, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 24. In 1667 he composed a Latin oratorio (lost) for the Confraternity of Crocifisso di San Marcello and in the following year composed the ‘Serenata La Circe’ for the Princess of Rossano, Olimpia Aldobrandini Pamphilj. In 1671-72 he collaborated in staging some operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti, at the Teatro Tordinona, composing prologues, intermezzi and new arias. In the early 1670s he also composed some operas performed in private theatres of aristocratic families.

However, Stradella began to live a dissolute life. In Rome, with Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, he attempted to embezzle money from the Church, but his malfeasance was discovered and he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. 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 Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Uffele. It was supposed that she and Stradella began an affair and together they fled from Venice to Turin, where they were protected by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, the Regent of Savoy. Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffele and Stradella must marry or that Uffele must take the veil (become a nun). She did the latter, but then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the marriage contract, he was attacked by two hired assassins, who believed him dead and left him lying in the street. He was not. The two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. It became known that Contarini had hired the assassins, which led to protests from the Regent of Savoy to King Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts.

In 1678 Stradella fled to Genoa, where he again met Lonati. He was paid to compose operas performed at Teatro Falcone and music for the local nobility.

In 1682 he was stabbed to death in the Piazza Banchi. A nobleman of the Lomellini family hired the killer, although the killer’s identity was never discovered. Stradella was buried in the church of Santa Maria delle Vigne.

Stradella was an extremely influential composer at the time, though his fame was eclipsed in the next century by Corelli, Vivaldi and others. Some of his music was ‘borrowed’ by George Frideric Handel, for example in 'Israel in Egypt' - this was not an unusual occurrence at that time; it was seen as recognition, even admiration, of the composer’s work by the ‘borrower’. Probably his greatest significance is in originating the concerto grosso: although Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under that title, Stradella had clearly used 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 baroque operas including a full-length comic opera ‘Il Trespolo Tutore’. He also wrote more than 170 cantatas, at least one of which was based on a poem by Sebastiano Baldini, and six oratorios. Stradella composed 27 separate instrumental pieces, most were for strings and basso continuo, and typically in the sonata da chiesa format.

He wrote two cantatas for the Regent of Savoy, ‘Se del pianeta ardente’ and ‘Sciogliete I dolci nodi’.

His colourful life and his bloody death ordered by the powerful Lomellini family provided the basis for the following operas: ‘Il cantore di Venezia’ by Virginio Marchi (1835), ‘Stradella’ by Louis Niedermeyer (Paris, 1837), ‘Stradella’ by César Franck (1841, unfinished), ‘Alessandro Stradella’ by Friedrich von Flotow (Hamburg, 1844), ‘Alessandro Stradella’ by Adolf Schimon (1846), ‘Stradella, il trovatore’ by Vincenzo Moscuzza (1850) and ‘Alessandro Stradella’ by Giuseppe Sinico (1864).