Galuppi: Keyboard Music
Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi is most well-known for his pioneering series of comic operas. But, according to MusicWeb International: "Galuppi was also a keyboard player of distinction who served at the court of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg. Twelve keyboard sonatas were published during his lifetime, but Hedda Illy’s catalogue lists over 100 and reveals that Galuppi not only inherited the brilliance and panache of Domenico Scarlatti but anticipated the expressive writing of Mozart."
Baldassare Galuppi (1706 - 1785) achieved international success, and spent periods of his career in London and Saint Petersburg, but his main base was Venice. He became famous throughout Europe for his comic operas, and 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 widely popular. He also composed a large amount of religious music.
For many years after Galuppi's death his music was largely forgotten. His name was brought back to public notice by the English poet Robert Browning's 1855 poem A Toccata of Galuppi's, but even this did not restore the composer's work to the general repertoire, and it was not until the last years of the twentieth century that his works were extensively revived in live performance and on record.
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