The rush of modern music and the modifications in taste have pushed the
scores of Pergolese from the theatre and the concert room, and no later
performances of his operas are to be noted as of consequence since the
double revival of "La Serva Padrona" in Paris, in 1863, when the original
version was given at the Italiens and the French translation at the Opéra
Comique, Mesdames Galli-Marié and Penco carrying off the honors. The
instrumental trios are never heard nowadays, and although Catholic choirs
throughout the world still keep his church music in use, it is only
upon rare occasions that the "Stabat Mater" is produced for Protestant
auditors by some serious-minded choral society.
Pergolese was a quite industrious writer, if allowance be made for the
diversions caused by his personal indulgences, and for the discouragement
which was naturally produced upon a temperament like his by the lack of
appreciation, sympathy and material support, individual patronage having
undoubtedly contributed at least as much to his material and spiritual
comfort and development as public applause and sustenance. He was not a
rapid writer, however, and the record of his compositions, so far as they
are known, includes besides the operas which have been already named, a
large cantata entitled "Orfeo;" five minor cantatas; an oratorio having
for its subject the Nativity; the thirty trios already alluded to; five
masses, and a dozen or so of religious pieces. A considerable number of
the vocal scores were published and twenty-four of the trios were printed
in London or Amsterdam, but the minor religious works and some of the
operas remained in manuscript and are practically inaccessible except to
studious inquirers in Italian libraries.
It is not difficult to establish now a just estimate of the genius of
Pergolese, which was undervalued during his lifetime, then suddenly
exalted above its worth and then again depreciated below its true
plane. It was seldom that the external form of his compositions gave an
adequate idea of the spiritual qualities which dwelt within them. Wise
and careful observers often remarked that they heard with surprise and
delight much which they had not anticipated from an examination of the
scores. Educated strictly in the severe and learned Neapolitan school,
he was of course a master of counterpoint and of all the devices and
figures of musical effect, which, as has been said, constituted the
staple of his first pieces. But he had an intuitive sense of the dramatic
element in man and in music, and he made this felt, alike in the humorous
sprightliness of "La Serva Padrona," the emotional piety of the "Salve
Regina," and the pathetic strophes of the "Stabat Mater."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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