FRANCESCO

See also:

• FRANCESCO CAVALLI (1599?-1676)

CAVALLI (1599?-1676)  , Italian musical composer, was born at Crema in 1599 or 1600 . His real name was Pier Francesco Caletti-Bruni, but he is better known by that of Cavalli, the name of his patron, a Venetian nobleman . He became a singer at St Mark's in Venice in 1617, second organist in 1639, first organist in 1665, and in 1668 maestro di cappella . He is, however, chiefly important for his operas . He began to write for the stage in 1639 (Le Nozze di Teti e di Peleo), and soon established so great a reputation that he was summoned to Paris in 166o to produce an opera (Serse) at the Louvre in honour of the marriage of Louis XIV . He visited Paris again in 1662, bringing out his Ercole Amante . His death occurred in Venice on the ,4th of January 1676 . Twenty-seven operas of Cavalli are still extant, most of them being preserved in the library of St Mark at Venice . Monteverde had found opera a musicoliterary experiment, and left it a magnificent dramatic spectacle . Cavalli succeeded in making opera a popular entertainment . He reduced Monteverde's extravagant orchestra to more practical limits, introduced melodious arias into his music and. popular types into his libretti . His operas have all the characteristic exaggerations and absurdities of the 17th century, but they have also a remarkably strong sense of dramatic effect as well as a great musical facility,' and a grotesque humour which was characteristic of Italian grand opera down to the death of Alessandro Scarlatti .