Tommaso Traetta
| Tommaso Traetta | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta 30 March 1727 Bitonto, Kingdom of Naples |
| Died | 6 April 1779 (aged 52) Venice, Republic of Venice |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Occupation | Composer |
Tommaso Michele Francesco Saverio Traetta (30 March 1727 – 6 April 1779) was an Italian composer.
Traetta was born in Bitonto, a town near Bari, near the top of the heel of the boot of Italy. He eventually became a pupil of the composer, singer and teacher Nicola Porpora in Naples, and scored a first success with his opera Il Farnace, in Naples, in 1751. Around this time he seems too have come into contact with Niccolò Jommelli. From here on in, Traetta seems to have had regular commissions from all around the country, running the gamut of the usual classical subjects. Then in 1759, something untoward happened that was to trigger Traetta's first operatic re-think. He accepted a post as court composer at Parma.
Parma, it has to be said, was hardly an important place in the grand scheme of things: a minor dukedom, but a dukedom with a difference, because the incumbent was Spanish and his wife was French. Parma had regularly changed owners between Austrians and Spaniards and the current Duke was the Infante Felipe. And in one of those inter-dynastic marriages which so complicate the history of Europe, he had married the eldest daughter of Louis XV. With the result that there was currently in Parma a craze for all things French, and in particular a fixation with the splendour of Versailles. Which is where the influence of the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau comes in. It was in Parma that Traetta's operas first began to move in new directions. And as a result there is no doubt that Antigona, his 1772 opera for St. Petersburg, was amongst his most forward-looking, the closest he approached the famous reform ideals usually associated with Gluck, but in fact a current that was felt by several other composers of the time.
It was in Parma, at the court of the Bourbon Duke there, that Traetta ran unexpectedly headlong into some fresh air from France. In Parma in 1759, he found a number of significant collaborators, and he was fortunate in finding that the man in charge of opera there was a highly cultivated Paris-trained Frenchman, Guillaume du Tillot, who had the complete cultural portfolio among all his other responsibilities as Don Felipe's First Minister. To judge from the general stylistic influence in terms of grand scenic effects, and from some specific musical borrowings, Traetta had access in Parma to copies and reports of Rameau's operas. To their influence, Traetta added some ingredients of his own, especially a feeling for dramatic colour, in the shape of his melodies and his use of the orchestra. The result was a combination of Italian, French and German elements, which even anticipate the Sturm und Drang movement that was to flourish a few years later, further North.
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