The Italians of the 17th century wrote suites, and Italy still held the place as leading the world in musical composition, just as it had in the 15th and 16th. We find the names of Frescobaldi, Michelangelo Rossi, Legrenzi, Bononcini, Giovanni Battista Vitali, Alessandro Scarlatti and his son Domenico, and going over into the seventeen-hundreds, Niccolo Porpora, Padre Martini, Paradies, and Baldassare Galuppi, whom we know through Robert Browning’s poem, _A Toccata of Galuppi’s_. Most of these names you will find on the concert programs of today. “SERIOUS” SCARLATTI AND OPERA WRITERS Alessandro Scarlatti (1659–1725) is one of the most important Italian composers of the 17th century, and although he did not have great success during his lifetime, his compositions have outlived those of other writers, whose works were popular during his day. He was called “serious Scarlatti,” and it was probably the very seriousness with which he looked upon his work that made him write without seeking public approval. Besides composing pieces for the spinet and harpsichord, and symphonies, sonatas, suites and concertos for different instruments, he wrote 125 operas, and over 500 cantatas, oratorios and church music. He was one of several Italians who continued the work of the first opera writers. Francesco Cavalli (1599–1676), Giacomo Carissimi (1603–1674), Luigi Rossi, Marc Antonio Cesti (1628–1669), Francesco Provenzale (1610–1704), Stradella (1645–1682), Caldara (1670–1736), Lotti (1667–1740), Marcello (1686–1739), Leo (1694–1746), and others carried the ideas of Scarlatti into the 18th century. Many of these carried Italian opera into England, Germany and France, where it became the model for _their_ opera. Stradella is quite as famous for his romantic love story, as he is for the operas he left. This made an interesting libretto in the 19th century for a German opera writer, Flotow, who was also the composer of the well-known opera _Martha_. “LA SERVA PADRONA” POINTS THE WAY Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710–1736), who died when he was only twenty-six years old, was looked upon as a genius, and in his early youth had written two works that were models for many that followed, a _Stabat Mater_ and a comic opera, _La Serva Padrona_, which was played recently in America under the title of _The Mistress Maid_. When this little opera was performed in Paris (1752) it caused a very famous musical quarrel known as the “war of the buffoons.” (Page 230.) Jomelli (1714–1774), the composer of fifty-five operas, was a Neapolitan but he lived in Germany for so many years, that he had more influence on early German opera than on the Italian. All the opera of this period, particularly the Italian, was very loosely put together and was not opera as we have it today. Later Gluck brought it to the point where it came of age. METASTASIO—MAKER OF OPERA LIBRETTOS