Baldassare Galuppi
1706 — 1785
Baldassare Galuppi 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.
Adapted from the Wikipedia article on Baldassare Galuppi.
From the period sources
Baldassare Galuppi, known as “Il Buranello,” was a significant figure among the “later Italian musicians” who, according to A General History of the Science and Practice of Music (1875), helped emancipate music from imitation by introducing new combinations and laying the foundation for a new style. His influence extended to notable pupils, including Andrea Adolfati, who became maestro di cappella in Venice and Genoa (A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 1905), and the Russian composer Dmitri Stepanovitch Bortniansky, who studied under Galuppi in both St. Petersburg and Venice, under the patronage of Empress Catherine II (Biographie universelle des musiciens, 1883; Dictionary of Music, 1908).
Galuppi’s operatic works were numerous, with Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians (1889) noting that Fétis listed fifty-four. His opera La fede nell’ inconstanza, ossia gli amici rivali, composed without knowledge of composition rules, was initially “hissed off the stage,” leading him to consider abandoning music until Benedetto Marcello secured his admission to the Conservatorio degli Incurabili, where he studied counterpoint under Antonio Lotti (Cyclopedia of Music and Musicians, 1889). He collaborated with Hasse and Johann Christian Bach on the opera Berenice (1764), as recorded in A Biographical Dictionary of Musicians (1886). His keyboard sonatas, such as one in D, are recognized for illustrating a “transitional process” in sonata-form, featuring an Arioso-type Adagio, a clear binary Allegro, a solid march, and a Giga, all “harmonically constructed” and of “sterling musical worth” (Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1908).