Domenico scarlatti brief biography examples

Five hundred and fifty five keyboard sonatas have secured the reputation of Domenico Scarlatti. Italian by birth, he worked mainly in Spain and Portugal, drawing on the folk music there to bring colour and vitality to his work. His music anticipated the Classical style in its structure and brilliance, and provided an important model for the great keyboard composers of the late eighteenth century. Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, where his father Alessandro was Maestro di cappella. In , at the age of only 15, he was appointed organist and composer to the royal court. After two years in Venice, Scarlatti moved to Rome in , and entered the service of the exiled Polish queen, Maria Casimira. From he was Maestro of the Cappella Giulia in the Vatican, holding the position until , when he began a five year appointment in Sicily. Though Scarlatti’s career was largely played out in Southern Europe, he may have visited London in for the staging of his opera Amor d’un ombra e gelosia d’un’aura. Four years later, he accepted his first Iberian appointment, as Mestre de capela to the Portuguese court in Lisbon. He taught music to the king’s daughter, Maria Barbara, and to Don