Sales (de Sala), Pietro Pompeo

Sales (de Sala), Pietro Pompeo , esteemed Italian composer; b. Brescia, c. 1729; d. Hanau, Nov. 21, 1797. After attending the Univ. of Innsbruck, he began his career as a conductor of an Italian opera company; traveled with it in various European cities. He served as director of the court chapel of Prince-Bishop Joseph, Landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt, in Augsburg and Dillingen an der Donau (1756–68), then was director of the court chapel of the Trier Elector Clemens Wenzeslaus, Prince-Bishop of Augsburg, in Ehrenbreitstein am Rhein (1768–86); subsequently was active at the elector’s court in Koblenz, which was disrupted twice during the French Revolutionary wars; he fled the French for the third time in 1797 and made his way to Hanau, dying shortly afterward. He was a distinguished representative of the Italian style.

Works

DRAMATIC : Opera Le nozze di Amore e di Norizia (Munich, 1765); Antigona in Tebe (Padua, 1767); L’Antigono (Munich, 1769); Achille in Sciro (Munich, 1774); II Re pastore (n.d.). Singspiel: L’isola disabitata (Augsburg, 1758); also Massanissa, oder Die obsiegende Treu, Jesuit drama (Innsbruck, 1752), and Le Cinesi, componimento drammatico (Augsburg, 1757). Oratorios: Oratorioper la festa del Santo Natale (Augsburg, 1756); Giefte (Mannheim, 1762); Passion (Ehrenbreitstein, 1772); Giuseppe riconosciuto (Ehrenbreitstein, 1780); Gioas re di Giuda (Ehrenbreitstein, 1781); La Betulla liberata (Ehrenbreitstein, 1772); Giusepper iconosciuto (Ehrenbreitstein, 1784); Sant’Elena (Koblenz, 1791). other: Sacred vocal pieces; 3 syms.; several concertos; etc.

Bibliography

F. Collingnon, P.P. S.(diss., Univ. of Bonn, 1923).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire