Niccolo Jommelli

Niccolò Jommelli (Italian: [nikkoˈlɔ jomˈmɛlli]; 10 September 1714 – 25 August 1774) was a Neapolitan composer. He was born in Aversa and died in Naples. Along with other composers mainly in the Holy Roman Empire and France, he made important changes to opera and reduced the importance of star singers.

Jommelli was born to Francesco Antonio Jommelli and Margarita Cristiano in Aversa, a town some 20 kilometres north of Naples. He had one brother Ignazio, who became a Dominican monk and helped the composer in his old age, and three sisters. His father was a prosperous linen merchant, who entrusted Jommelli to study music under Canon Muzzillo, the director of the Aversa cathedral choir.

As he had shown talent for music, Jommelli was enrolled after in 1725 at the Conservatorio di Santo Onofrio a Capuana in Naples, where he studied under Ignazio Prota, and alongside Tomaso Prota and Francesco Feo. Three years later he was transferred to the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini, where he was trained under Niccolò Fago, having Don Giacomo Sarcuni and Andrea Basso, as second maestri, that is, singing teachers (maestri di canto). He was greatly influenced by Johann Adolph Hasse, who was in Naples during this period. After completing his studies he began work, and wrote two opere buffe, L'errore amorosa in early 1737 and Odoardo in late 1738. His first opera seria, Ricimero re di Goti, was such a success in Rome in 1740 that work was immediately commissioned from him by Henry Benedict Stuart, the Cardinal-Duke of York.

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