Antonio Cesti

Pietro Marc'Antonio Cesti (Italian pronunciation: [anˈtɔːnjo ˈtʃesti]) (baptism 5 August 1623 – 14 October 1669), known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, was also a singer (tenor), and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation".

Biography

He was born at Arezzo, and studied with various local musicians. In 1637 he joined the Order of Friars Minor, or Franciscans, a Roman Catholic religious group founded by Francis of Assisi. While he was in Volterra he turned more toward secular music, perhaps due to the patronage and influence of the powerful Medici family. Here he also came in contact with Salvator Rosa, who wrote libretti for a number of Cesti's cantatas. By 1650 Cesti's calling as a Franciscan friar and his success as a singer and composer for operas was coming into conflict, and he was officially reprimanded. In 1652 he became a member of the court at Innsbruck of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria. After holding a post somewhere in Florence as maestro di cappella, he entered the papal chapel in 1660. In 1666 he became Vice-Kapellmeister at Vienna, and died at Venice in 1669.

Music

File:Pomodoro.jpg

Scenography for Il pomo d'oro

Cesti is known principally as a composer of operas. The most celebrated of these were La Dori (Venice, 1663), Il pomo d'oro (Vienna, 1668) and Orontea (1656). Il pomo d'oro (The Golden Apple) was performed for the wedding of Emperor Leopold I. It was far more elaborate than contemporary Venetian operas, including a large orchestra, numerous choruses, and various mechanical devices used to stage things like gods descending from heaven (deus ex machina), naval battles, and storms. Orontea was revived seventeen times in the next thirty years, making it one of the most frequently performed operas on the continent in the mid-17th century. Even Samuel Pepys owned a copy of the score. It includes a well-known soprano aria "Intorno all'idol mio" (English: "Around my idol").

Cesti was also a composer of chamber cantatas, and his operas are notable for the pure and delicate style of their airs, more suited to the chamber than to the stage. He wrote in the bel canto style of the 17th century, and his compositions were heavily influenced by his career as a professional singer. Cesti's musical writing owes much to the emerging tonality of the time.

Works

Title	Libretto	Première date	Place, theatre	Notes
Alessandro vincitor di se stesso	Francesco Sbarra	1651	Venice, Teatro Santi Giovanni e Paolo
Il Cesare amante	Dario Varotari	1651	Venice, Teatro Grimano
Cleopatra	Dario Varotari	1654	Innsbruck	revised version of Il Cesare amante
L'Argia	Giovanni Filippo Apolloni	1655	Innsbruck
Marte placata	Giovanni Filippo Apolloni	1655	Innsbruck
Orontea	Giacinto Andrea Cicognini, revised by Giovanni Filippo Apolloni	19 February 1656	Innsbruck	revived in Innsbruck in 1982 (René Jacobs) and recorded for HM; revived in Frankfurt in 2015 (Ivor Bolton)
La Dori	Giovanni Filippo Apolloni	1657	Innsbruck
Venere cacciatrice	Francesco Sbarra	1659	Innsbruck	lost
La magnanimità d’Alessandro	Francesco Sbarra	1662	Innsbruck
Il Tito	Nicolò Beregan	13 February 1666	Venice, Teatro Grimano
Nettuno e Flora festeggianti	Francesco Sbarra	12 July 1666	Vienna
Le disgrazie d'Amore	Francesco Sbarra	19 February 1667	Vienna
La Semirami	Giovanni Andrea Moniglia	9 July 1667	Vienna	revised 1674 in Modena as La schiava fortunata
La Germania esultante	Francesco Sbarra	1667	Vienna
Il pomo d'oro	Francesco Sbarra	12–14 July 1668	Vienna
Genserico	Nicolò Beregan	1669	Venice

Recordings

• Pietro Antonio Cesti "Pasticcio", Festwochen der Alten Musik in Innsbruck 1980, excerpts from operas "Il pomo d'oro", "Argia", "Tito", "Orontea", "Dori", "Semirami". Performers: René Jacobs, Judith Nelson, William Christie, Konrad Junghänel. ORF Edition Alte Musik.
• Le disgrazie d’amore, Auser Musici, Carlo Ipata, director, Hyperion CDA67771 (2010)
• Alma Mia, Raquel Andueza, soprano with La Galania directed by Fernández Baena (excerpts from operas L'Argia, La Dori, Orontea, Il Tito, and two cantatas: Non si parli più d'Amore and Ò quanto concorso. Anima e Corpo AeC003 (2014)

See also

• Baroque opera
• Francesco Cavalli
• Claudio Monteverdi, a contemporary of Cesti

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: 
• David L. Burrows. "Antonio Cesti", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (accessed December 29, 2005), grovemusic.com (subscription access).
• Grout, Donald; Claude Palisca. A History of Western Music, 6th edition. W. W. Norton & Company. New York, 2001.

External links

• Free scores by Antonio Cesti at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by Antonio Cesti in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)