Sarti, Giuseppe

Sarti, Giuseppe, noted Italian composer, nicknamed “II Domenichino”; b. Faenza (baptized), Dec. 1, 1729; d. Berlin, July 28, 1802. He took music lessons in Padua with Valotti; when he was 10, he went to Bologna to continue his studies with Padre Martini. Returning to Faenza, he was organist at the Cathedral (1748–52); in 1752 he was appointed director of the theater in Faenza; that same year his first opera, Pompeo in Armenia, was performed. His next opera, II Re pastore, was staged in Venice in 1753 with great success. Toward the end of 1753 he went to Copenhagen as a conductor of Pietro Mingotti’s opera troupe. His work impressed the King of Denmark, Frederik V, and in 1755 he was named court Kapellmeister. He subsequently was made director of the Italian Opera, but it was closed in 1763; he then was appointed director of court music. In 1765 he was sent by the King to Italy to engage singers for the reopening of the Opera, but Frederik’s death aborted the project. Sarti remained in Italy, where he served as maestro di coro at the Pietà Cons. in Venice (1766–67). In 1768 he returned to Copenhagen, where he resumed his duties as director of the royal chapel; from 1770 to 1775 he was conductor of the court theater. He then returned to Italy with his wife, the singer Camilla Passi, whom he had married in Copenhagen. He became director of the Cons. dell’Ospedaletto in Venice in 1775. In 1779 he entered the competition for the position of maestro di cappella at Milan Cathedral, winning it against a number of competitors, including Paisiello. By this time his prestige as a composer and as a teacher was very high. Among his numerous pupils was Cherubini. In 1784 he was engaged by Catherine the Great as director of the Imperial chapel in St. Petersburg. On his way to Russia, he passed through Vienna, where he was received with honors by the Emperor Joseph II; he also met Mozart, who quoted a melody from Sarti’s opera Fra i due litiganti in Don Giovanni. His greatest success in St. Petersburg was Armida e Rinaldo (Jan. 26, 1786), remodeled from an earlier opera, Armida abbandonata, originally performed in Copenhagen in 1759; the leading role was sung by the celebrated Portuguese mezzo-soprano Luiza Todi, but she developed a dislike of Sarti, and used her powerful influence with Catherine the Great to prevent his reengagement. However, he was immediately engaged by Prince Potemkin, and followed him to southern Russia and Moldavia during the military campaign against Turkey; on the taking of Ochakov, Sarti wrote an ode to the Russian liturgical text of thanksgiving, and it was performed in Jan. 1789 at Jassy, Bessarabia, with the accompaniment of cannon shots and church bells. Potemkin offered him a sinecure as head of a singing school in Ekaterinoslav, but Sarti did not actually teach there. After Potemkin’s death in 1791, his arrangements with Sarti were honored by the court of St. Petersburg; in 1793 he was reinstated as court composer and was named director of a conservatory. Sarti’s operas enjoyed considerable success during his lifetime but sank into oblivion after his death. He was an adept contrapuntist, and excelled in polyphonic writing; his Fuga a otto voci on the text of a Kyrie is notable. He was also astute in his adaptation to political realities. In Denmark he wrote Singspiels in Danish, and in Russia he composed a Requiem in memory of Louis XVI in response to the great lamentation at the Russian Imperial Court at the execution of the French king (1793). He also composed an offering to the Emperor Paul, whose daughters studied music with Sarti. After Paul’s violent death at the hands of the palace guard, Sarti decided to leave Russia, but died in Berlin on his way to Italy. In 1796 Sarti presented to the Russian Academy of Sciences an apparatus to measure pitch (the so-called St. Petersburg tuning fork).

Works

DRAMATIC : Pompeo in Armenia, dramma per musica (Faenza, Carnival 1752); II Re pastore, dramma per musica (Venice, Carnival 1753); Vologeso, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Carnival 1754); Antigono, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Oct. 14, 1754; some arias by other composers); Ciro riconosciuto, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Dec. 21, 1754); Arianna e Teseo, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Carnival 1756); Anagilda, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Fall 1758); Armida abbandonata, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, 1759; later version as Armida e Rinaldo, St. Petersburg, Jan. 26, 1786); Achille in Sciro, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, 1759); Andromaca, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, 1759?); Filindo, pastorale eroica (Copenhagen, 1760); Astrea placata, festa teatrale (Copenhagen, Oct. 17, 1760); La Nitteti, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Oct. 12, 1760); Issipile, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, 1760?); Alessandro nell’Indie, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Oct.12, 1760); Issipile, dramma per musica(Copenhagen, Fall 1762); Didone abbandonata, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Winter 1762); Narciso, dramma pastorale (Copenhagen, Fall 1762); Cesare in donata, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Fall 1763); Il naufragio di Cipro, dramma pastorale (Copenhagen, 1764); Il gran Tamerlano, tragedia per musica (Copenhagen, 1764); Ipermestra, dramma per musica (Rome, Carnival 1766); La Giardiniera brillante, intermezzo (Rome, Jan. 3, 1768); L’Asile de l’amour, dramatic cantata (Copenhagen, July 22, 1769); La Double Méprise, ou, Cariile et Fany, comédie mêlée d’ariettes (Copenhagen, July 22, 1769); Soliman den Anden, Singspiel (Copenhagen, Oct. 8, 1770); Le Bal, opéra-comique (Copenhagen, 1770); Il tempio d’eternità, festa teatrale (Copenhagen, 1771); Demofoonte, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, Jan. 30, 1771); Tronfelgen i Sidon, lyrisk tragicole (Copenhagen April, 1771); D e mofoonte, dramma per musica (Copenhagen, 1771; a different score from the one of 1753); La clemenza di Tito, dramma per musica (Padua, June 1771); Deucalion og Pyrrlta, Singspiel (Copenhagen, March 19, 1772); Aglae, eller Statten, Singspiel (Copenhagen, Feb. 16, 1774); Kierlighedsbrevene, Singspiel (Copenhagen, March 22, 1775); Farnace, dramma per musica (Venice, 1776); Le gelosie villane (II Feudatario), dramma giocoso (Venice, Nov. 1776); Ifigenia, dramma per musica (Rome, Carnival 1777); Medonte re di Epiro, dramma per musica (Florence, Sept. 8, 1777); Il Militare bizzarro, dramma giocoso (Venice, Dec. 27, 1777); Olimpiade, dramma per musica (Florence, 1778); Scipione, dramma per musica (Mestre, Fall 1778); I contratempi, dramma giocoso (Venice, Nov. 1778); Adriano in Siria, dramma per musica (Rome, Dee. 26, 1778); L’ambizione delusa, intermezzo (Rome, Feb. 1779); Mitridate a Sinope, dramma per musica (Florence, Fall 1779); Achille in Sciro, dramma per musica (Florence, Fall 1779); Siroe, dramma per musica (Turin, Dec. 26, 1779); Giulio Sabino, dramma per musica (Venice, Jan. 1781); Demofoonte, dramma per musica (Rome, Carnival 1782; a different score from the one of 1771); Didone abbandonata, dramma per musica (Padua, June 1782; a different score from the one of 1762); Alessandro e Timoteo, dramma per musica (Parma, Aprii 6, 1782); Fra i due litiganti il terzo gode, dramma giocoso (Milan, Sept. 14, 1782; subsequently perf. under various titles); Alialo re di Bitinia, dramma per musica (Venice, Dec. 26, 1782); Idalide, dramma per musica (Milan, Jan. 8, 1783); Erifile, dramma per musica (Pavia, Carnival 1783); Il trionfo della pace, dramma per musica (Mantua, May 10, 1783); Olimpiade, dramma per musica (Rome, 1783; a different score from the one of 1778); Gli Amanti consolati, dramma giocoso (St. Petersburg, 1784); I finti eredi, opera comica (St. Petersburg, Oct. 30, 1785); Armida e Rinaldo, dramma per musica (St. Petersburg, Jan. 26, 1786; based upon Armida abbandonata of 1759); Castore e Polluce, dramma per musica (St. Petersburg, Oct. 3, 1786); Zenoclea, azione teatrale (1786; not performed); Alessandro nell’Indie, dramma per musica (Palermo, Winter 1787; a different score from the one of 1761); Cleomene, dramma per musica (Bologna, Dec. 27, 1788); The Early Reign of Oleg, Russian opera to a libretto by Catherine the Great (St. Petersburg, Oct. 22, 1790; in collaboration with V. Pashkevich); Il trionfo d’Atalanta (1791; not performed); Andromeda, dramma per musica (St. Petersburg, Nov. 4, 1798); Enea nel Lazio, dramma per musica (St. Petersburg, Oct. 26, 1799); La Famille indienne en Angleterre, opera (St. Petersburg, 1799); Les Amours de Flore et de Zéphire, ballet anacréontique (Gatchina, Sept. 19, 1800). OTHER : Several secular cantatas, masses, Requiems, Te Deums, etc.; instrumental works, including syms. and chamber works.

Bibliography

G. Pasolini, G. S. (Faenza, 1883); C. Rivalta, G. S.: Musicista faentino del secolo XVIII (Faenza, 1928); F. Samory, A G. S. nel 2 centenario di sua nascita (Faenza, 1929); R. Jones, A Performing Edition and Discussion of G. S.’s Te Deum in D (diss., Stanford Univ., 1966).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire