Alessandro Stradella

Life goals of Alessandro Stradella:
- embezzle money from church
- have affair with a student (who is also your employer’s mistress)
- become an excellent Baroque composer, so good that Handel plagiarizes your work
- be stabbed to death

Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella[1] (Bologna, 3 July 1643[1] – Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.[2]

Not much is known about his early life, but he was from a Tuscan aristocratic family, educated at Bologna, and was already making a name for himself as a composer at the age of 20.[3] In 1667 he moved to Rome where he composed for Christina, Queen of Sweden, mostly sacred music. He was involved in performances of four operas, two by Francesco Cavalli and two by Antonio Cesti. Stradella began to live a dissolute life. With Carlo Ambrogio Lonati he attempted to embezzle money from the Roman Catholic Church, but was found out: he fled the city, only returning much later when he thought it was safe. His numerous incautious affairs with women began to make him enemies among the powerful men of the city, and he had to leave Rome for good.[4]

In 1677 he went to Venice, where he was hired by a powerful nobleman, Alvise Contarini, as the music tutor to his mistress, Agnese Van Uffele. She and Stradella began an affair[citation needed] and fled Venice together for Turin, where they were protected by Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, the regent of Savoy.[5] Contarini followed and instructed the Archbishop that Uffele and Stradella must marry or that Uffele must take the veil. She did the latter, and then the two married in October; however, as Stradella left the convent after signing the contract, he was attacked from behind on 10 October by two would-be hired assassins, who believed him dead when they left him in the street.[6] He was not. The two assassins took asylum with the French ambassador. That Contarini had hired the attackers became known, leading to complaints from the regent of Savoy to Louis XIV; the matter became a topic of negotiation between the courts. In 1678 Stradella fled to Genoa, where he met again with Lonati. He was paid to compose music for the local nobility and the Teatro Falconi.[2]

Antonio Alessandro Boncompagno Stradella ( Bologna, 3 July 1643 - Genoa, 25 February 1682) was an Italian composer of the middle Baroque period. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, and collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.

BWV

Ever wonder what BWV stands for or where those numbers came from?

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The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (BWV; lit. Bach works catalogue; German: [̍ˈbax ˈvɛrkɛ fɛrˈtsaɪçnɪs]) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV2a, was published in 1998.

BWV numbers were assigned to 1,126 compositions in the 20th century, and more have been added to the catalogue in the 21st century. The Anhang (Anh.; Annex) of the BWV lists over 200 lost, doubtful and spurious compositions.

The first edition of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis was published in 1950. It allocated a unique number to every known composition by Bach. Wolfgang Schmieder, the editor of that catalogue, grouped the compositions by genre, largely following the 19th-century Bach Gesellschaft (BG) edition for the collation (e.g. BG cantata number = BWV number of the cantata):[1]

The Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis ( BWV; lit. Bach works catalogue; German: [̍ˈbax ˈvɛrkɛ fɛrˈtsaɪçnɪs]) is a catalogue of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach. It was first published in 1950, edited by Wolfgang Schmieder. The catalogue's second edition appeared in 1990. An abbreviated version of that second edition, known as BWV 2a, was published in 1998.

Ne irascaris

There are so many fascinating topics to explore in Early Music, but the real reason I do what I do is the chance to perform gorgeous pieces like this one.