Giovanni Paisiello

A fair amount is known about the life and work of Giovanni Paisiello. The majority of his music has been preserved, including the bulk of his operas and an important body of chamber and church music, among other works. However, until now, his pedagogic oeuvre and teaching activities have been studied only partially.

Surviving letters by Paisiello and an autobiographical sketch he wrote for the Dictionnaire historique des musiciens by Choron and Fayolle provide an explicit picture of his personality. They reflect not only Paisiello’s major artistic achievements but also his “particular talent for establishing political and cultural contacts.” There was hardly another composer of the eighteenth century who served so many rulers and demonstrated such a heightened ability to adapt and fulfill his employers’ desires. For instance, in one of his letters, Paisiello points out that Italian was not understood at the Russian court and that the empress preferred operas that were not too long.

Paisiello received his initial training not far from the place of his birth, Roccaforzata in Taranto. Beginning in 1754, he studied for nine years at the Conservatorio di Sant’Onofrio in Naples. In these years, according to his own testimony, he composed several masses, psalm settings, motets, oratorios, and an intermezzo buffo which he might well have staged at the conservatory, as was the educational custom at the time.

The years from 1764 to 1776 brought Paisiello commissions from various Italian opera houses. In 1767 alone, he composed four operas: Le ‘mbroglie de le bajasse, Lucio Papirio dittatore, Il furbo malaccorto, and L’idolo cinese. The performance of the last in the Teatro Nuovo was such a success that King Ferdinand IV of Naples invited the same company to perform it at court—the first-ever opera buffa to be thus honored. In addition, the opera was performed multiple times in the Palace of Caserta in 1768 and 1769.

For the marriage of Ferdinand IV in May 1768 to Maria Carolina, archduchess of Austria, Paisiello wrote his Festa Teatrale in Musica Per solennizare le Felicissime Reali Nozze Delle Loro Sacre Maestà….