Domenico Scarlatti
26 October 1685 – 23 July 1757
Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque composer, son of Alessandro Scarlatti, who spent much of his career in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is best known for his 555 keyboard sonatas, whose bold harmonies, hand-crossings, and Iberian colorings influenced the development of the Classical keyboard style.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Domenico Scarlatti.
- Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) Overlapped 72 years →
- Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) Overlapped 72 years →
- George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) Overlapped 72 years →
- George Berkeley (1685–1753) Overlapped 68 years →
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) Overlapped 68 years →
- Montesquieu (1689–1755) Overlapped 66 years →
Life events
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples on 26 October 1685, the sixth child of the composer Alessandro Scarlatti.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1701, aged fifteen, Scarlatti became organist and composer at the Chapel Royal of Naples, where his father was maestro di cappella.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgFrom 1709 Scarlatti worked as maestro di cappella to Maria Casimira, the exiled queen of Poland, composing operas for her private theatre in Rome.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAccording to an account by Handel's early biographer, Scarlatti and Handel competed in a friendly trial of skill at Cardinal Ottoboni's palace, Scarlatti being judged superior on the harpsichord and Handel on the organ.
In 1714 Scarlatti became music director of the Cappella Giulia at the Vatican, a post he held until 1719.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1719 Scarlatti took up a post at the Portuguese royal chapel in Lisbon, where he taught Princess Maria Barbara, his lifelong patron.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgOn 15 May 1728 Scarlatti married the sixteen-year-old Roman Maria Caterina Gentili, with whom he had five children before her death in 1739.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgWhen Maria Barbara married the Spanish crown prince in 1729, Scarlatti moved with her court to Seville and then, in 1733, to Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgIn 1738 Scarlatti was made a Knight of the Order of Santiago, and around the same time his collection of thirty keyboard sonatas, the Essercizi, was published in London.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgScarlatti died in Madrid on 23 July 1757 at the age of 71.
Source: en.wikipedia.org