Alessandro Stradella

Available biographical details concerning this composer are somewhat contradictory! To cite just a couple of sources, the Encyclopedia Britannica has him being born on April 3rd 1639 in Viterbo (about 80km north of Rome); but Wikipedia says he was born in Bologna (380km north of Rome) in 1645 -whilst simultaneously displaying a picture of him (presumably taken from the frontispiece of a much later, French, published score) declaring him to have been born in Naples in 1645! Both sources agree he died on February 25th 1682 in Genoa, however. The specificity of his death details means we are definitely talking about the same man, so the date variations about his birth, including a very wide 6-year range of possible dates, is somewhat surprising!

This website's 'source of truth' in such matters is, however the 1980 New Groves, which gives him a substantial 4 page write-up, starting with his being born in Rome in 1644 and dying (once more!) in Genoa in 1682. So, for this site, 1644-1682 it is! Interestingly, other sources declare his birthplace to have been the town of 'Nepi', which is just 50km north of Rome and whose name, once garbled, may have been the (mistaken) source of the Wikipedia image claim that he was born in Naples. Just as an aside, Nepi is claimed to have been the origin of the catnip plant, beloved of zoomed-up cats for centuries, with the 'nip' part of the name being derived from the town's name. Anyway, the place is close enough for the New Groves claim of 'Rome' as his place of birth to be accepted as-is.

Their article also sums him up as, “one of the leading composers in Italy in his day and one of the most versatile”.

He had an interesting life! Until 1677, he was mostly based in Rome, but was forced to flee that city for a time in 1669 after conspiring with an abbot and a violinist to embezzle money from the Catholic church (and you don't get to write sentences like that every day!). He was able to return to Rome after the scandal had quietened down, but fled again -this time permanently- in 1677 after incurring the anger of Cardinal Alderan Cibo. He travelled first to Venice and got a job teaching music to the mistress of Alvise Contarini, the head of a powerful Venetian family. Unfortunately, Stradella took off with the mistress in question to Turin, where Contrarini tracked him down and, with a group of 40 armed men, made their plans to kill him and recover the lady. Stradella was protected from that particular plot, but Contarini was not so easy to get rid of: he sent two of his henchmen back to Turin with instructions to murder Stradella, which they attempted to do on October 10th 1677. They failed, but Stradella had to escape to Genoa, whilst the lady in question (one Agnese Van Uffele) became a nun.

History doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme… and in 1682 he got involved with a woman from the powerful Lomellini Genoese family, which ended with his stabbing death at the hands of a hired killer in the Piazza Bianchi, Genoa.

Despite his, er, 'chaotic' personal life, Stradella's musical compositions were admired for their melodic beauty and expressive power, and he produced a steady stream of high-quality works, including the oratorio San Giovanni Battista, which is considered one of his masterpieces. His music was widely admired and influential during his lifetime, and his legacy continued to be felt long after his death. Perhaps his greatest contribution is to have effectively invented the concerto grosso: while Corelli in his Op. 6 was the first to publish works under this title, Stradella clearly uses the format earlier in one of his Sonate di viole -and the two composers certainly knew each other, so it's pretty clear Stradella directly influenced Corelli and not the other way round. His output included at least six baroque operas, more than 170 cantatas, six oratorios and 27 separate instrumental pieces, mostly for strings and basso continuo, often in the sonata da chiesa format. Many of his compositions were widely performed and circulated throughout Europe in his lifetime, and he is now recognized as one of the most important composers of the Italian Baroque era, though his reputation was soon to be eclipsed by the likes of Vivaldi and the aforementioned Corelli.