Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
Giovanni Battista Draghi (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista ˈdraːɡi]; 4 January 1710 – 16 or 17 March 1736), usually referred to as Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (Italian: [perɡoˈleːzi; -eːsi]), was an Italian Baroque composer, violinist, and organist, leading exponent of the Baroque; he is considered one of the greatest Italian musicians of the first half of the 18th century and one of the most important representatives of the Neapolitan school.
This article is about the composer. For the 18th-century decorative artist, see Michael Angelo Pergolesi.Despite his short life and few years of activity (he died of tuberculosis at the age of 26), he managed to create works of high artistic value and historical importance, among which we remember La serva padrona (The Maid Turned Mistress), of the highest importance for the development and diffusion of the opera buffa in Europe, L'Olimpiade, considered one of the masterpieces of the opera seria of the first half of the eighteenth century,[5] and the Stabat Mater, among the most important works of sacred music of all time.[6][7][8]
Pergolesi's works on screen[edit]
Pergolesi's Salve Regina is a highlighted performance in the movie Farinelli (1994), in which Farinelli also performs Stabat Mater Dolorosa in the only duet. The first and last parts of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater were used in the soundtrack of the movie Jesus of Montreal (Jésus de Montréal) (1989); the fifth part ("Quis est homo") was used in the soundtrack of the movie Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997); the last part was also used in the movie Amadeus (1984) and in the movie The Mirror (1975) by Andrei Tarkovsky. The film Cactus (1986) by the Australian director Paul Cox also features Pergolesi's Stabat Mater on the soundtrack.[13] Nothing Left Unsaid, a 2016 documentary on Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper, used the last movement ("Quando Corpus / Amen") of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater.