Baldassare Galuppi (18 October 1706 – 3 January 1785) was a Venetian composer, born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Republic. He belonged to a generation of composers, including Johann Adolph Hasse, Giovanni Battista Sammartini, and C. P. E. Bach, whose works are emblematic of the prevailing galant music that developed in Europe throughout the 18th century. He achieved international success, spending periods of his career in Vienna, London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base remained Venice, where he held a succession of leading appointments.
In his early career, Galuppi made a modest success in opera seria, but from the 1740s, together with the playwright and librettist Carlo Goldoni, he became famous throughout Europe for his comic operas in the new dramma giocoso style. To the succeeding generation of composers, he was known as "the father of comic opera". Some of his mature opere serie, for which his librettists included the poet and dramatist Metastasio, were also widely popular.
Throughout his career, Galuppi held official positions with charitable and religious institutions in Venice, the most prestigious of which was maestro di cappella at the Doge's chapel, St Mark's Basilica. In these various capacities, he composed a large amount of sacred music. He was also highly regarded as a virtuoso performer on and composer for keyboard instruments.
In the latter half of the 18th century, Galuppi's music was largely forgotten outside of Italy, and Napoleon's invasion of Venice in 1797 resulted in Galuppi's manuscripts being scattered around Western Europe, and in many cases, destroyed or lost. Galuppi's name persists in the English poet Robert Browning's 1855 poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's", but this has not helped maintain the composer's work in the general repertoire. Some of Galuppi's works were occasionally performed in the 200 years after his death, but it was not until the last years of the 20th century that his compositions were extensively revived in live performance and on recordings.
Galuppi was born on the island of Burano in the Venetian Lagoon, and from as early as age 22 was known as "Il Buranello", a nickname which even appears in the signature on his music manuscripts, "Baldassare Galuppi, called 'Buranello'." His father was a barber, who also played the violin in theatre orchestras, and is believed to have been his son's first music teacher. Although there is no documentation, oral tradition as related to Francesco Caffi in the nineteenth century says that the young Galuppi was trained in composition and harpsichord by Antonio Lotti, the chief organist at St Mark's Basilica. At the age of 15, Galuppi composed his first opera, Gli amici rivali, which, according to Caffi, was performed unsuccessfully at Chioggia and equally unsuccessfully in Vicenza under the title La fede nell'incostanza.
From 1726 to 1728, Galuppi was harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence. On his return to Venice in 1728, he produced a second opera, Gl'odi delusi dal sangue, written in collaboration with another Lotti pupil, Giovanni Battista Pescetti; it was well received when it was presented at the Teatro San Angelo. The collaborators followed it with an opera seria, Dorinda, the next year. This, too, was modestly successful, and Galuppi began to receive commissions for operas and oratorios.
In 1740, Galuppi was appointed "maestro di coro" at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice, where his duties ranged from teaching and conducting to composing liturgical music and oratorios. In his first year of service at the Mendicanti, he composed 31 works: 16 motets, 13 settings of the Salve Regina, and two psalm settings. Although he became internationally known as an operatic composer, he maintained a steady output of sacred music throughout his career.
In 1741, Galuppi was invited to work in London. He petitioned the Mendicanti authorities for leave of absence, to which they agreed.
He was in England for 18 months, supervising productions for the Italian opera company at the King's Theatre. Of the 11 operas under his direction, at least three are known to have been his own compositions, Penelope, Scipione in Cartagine and Sirbace; a fourth was presented shortly after he left London to return to Venice. Rival composer Handel attended one of these productions. Galuppi also attracted attention as a keyboard virtuoso and composer. His contemporary, the English musicologist Charles Burney, wrote that "Galuppi had had more influence on English music than any other Italian composer". However, in Burney's view Galuppi's skills were still immature during his spell in London. Burney wrote, "He now copied the hasty, light and flimsy style which reigned in Italy at this time, and which Handel's solidity and science had taught the English to despise."
On his return to Venice in May 1743, Galuppi returned to his employment with the Mendicanti, and to composing for the opera houses. The operatic fashion in Venice was on the point of changing from opera seria to a new style of comic opera, dramma giocoso. Full-length comic operas from Naples and Rome were becoming fashionable; Galuppi adapted three of them for Venetian audiences in 1744, and the following year composed one of his own, La forza d'amore, which was only a mild success. He continued to compose serious operas, sometimes in partnership with the librettist Metastasio. The latter believed firmly that the music was there to serve the text rather than vice versa. He grumbled about Galuppi in 1749, "He is, I presume, an excellent composer for violins, for cellos and for voices, but he is an exceedingly bad one for poets. When he writes he thinks as much about the words as you do about being elected Pope ... As far as the public is concerned, he is appreciated by those who judge with their ears but not their souls." Nevertheless, their joint work prospered, and was staged in other countries. In Vienna, their Demetrio and Artaserse were great successes, the former breaking all local box-office records.
In May 1748, Galuppi was appointed vice-maestro of the Doge's chapel, St Mark's. In time this would lead to a large body of religious compositions, but for the present Galuppi was chiefly engaged in operatic work. It is not clear to Denis Arnold why he accepted the post at St Mark's. The musicologist writes, "He was already a very successful opera composer and with his duties at the Mendicanti he must have had enough to do. The salary at St Mark's was only 120 ducats. ... At this time, it was not a very distinguished cappella. The choir probably numbered about 30; but since their posts continued up to death, a fair proportion of the singers were old." However, Daniel Heartz points out that Galuppi's salary eventually increased to 400 ducats per annum, and then to 600 ducats. In addition to the prestige of the position, Galuppi was given a house near the basilica in which he and his family lived rent-free, and as he had very few firm obligations as vice-maestro, the position left him with the flexibility to compose for other venues, including opera houses in Venice, Vienna, London, and Berlin. By the time of his death, Galuppi and Gluck were two of the highest paid composers of the 18th century. (See Heartz, 2003)
Galuppi was fortunate that when he turned once more to comic opera in 1749 he collaborated with Carlo Goldoni. Although an established and eminent playwright by the time he worked with Galuppi, Goldoni was happy for his libretti to be subservient to the music. He was as warm in his regard for Galuppi as Metastasio was cold. Their first collaboration was Arcadia in Brenta followed by four more joint works within a year. They were enormously popular at home and abroad, and to meet the demand for new drammi giocosi and opere serie Galuppi had to resign his post at the Mendicanti in 1751. By the middle of the 1750s he was, in the words of musicologist Dale Monson, "the most popular opera composer anywhere".
For the next ten years, Galuppi remained in Venice, with occasional sorties elsewhere for commissions and premieres, producing a series of secular and religious works. His operas, serious or comic, were in demand across Europe. Of the British premiere of Il filosofo di campagna in 1761 Burney wrote, "This burletta surpassed in musical merit all the comic operas that were performed in England, till the Buona Figliuola."