PAISIELLO, Giovanni 1740-1816

Sestetto S'armi la Grecia or ch'io. Copyist manuscript full score]

Italy: ca. 1787.

Oblong folio (226 x 319 mm). Sewn. Notated in brown ink on 12-stave rastrum-ruled paper. [i] (title), 67 pp.

From the opera Pirro, scored for six voices (Polissena, Darete, Climene, Ulisse, Pirro, Eleno) accompanied by strings, oboes, and horns.

Heavy soiling to blank lower margin of title; moderate soiling to blank inner and outer margins of title; occasional minor stains, mainly to blank margins; paper imperfections to p. 28 obscuring two notes a portion of one word.

An additional 18th century copy of this sestet is held at the Library of Congress (RISM 130962).

Paisiello "was one of the most successful and influential opera composers of the late 18th century. ... [His] heroic or tragic operas have not been highly regarded in recent times, partly because his music has been considered too light and frivolous for the sober nature of the genre. Yet he took their composition seriously, and the fact that all but one of his full-length operas written after 1792 have heroic or tragic texts suggests that he retained an affection for this genre longer than for comic opera. He greatly admired Metastasio, whose librettos he extolled to his pupils. ... After his return to Naples he was no longer able to work toward a comprehensive reform of heroic opera because of the necessity of pleasing conservative taste at the S Carlo. Nonetheless, several of his later operas lack vocalizations and pauses for cadenzas, and a few contain interesting experimental features. Pirro (1787) uses ensemble finales of a type normally reserved for comic opera, during which the action continues to progress." Michael F. Robinson in Grove Music Online.

Item #40902

Price: $650.00  other currencies