[4] Born in Naples, date unknown; died there in 1763. He was one of the creators of opera buffa, his parodistic dialect pieces—Il governatore, Il vecchio marito, Tanto bene che male, etc.—being among its first examples. In 1747 he became professor of counterpoint at the Conservatorio dei figliuoli dispersi in Palermo.
[5] After his return to Naples his three last works, Armida, Demofoonte, and Ifigenia in Tauride, passed over the heads of an unmindful public. The composer felt these disappointments keenly. Impaired in health he retired to his native town of Aversa and died there August 25, 1774.
[6] Baldassare Galuppi, born on the island of Burano, near Venice, In 1706; died in Venice, 1785, was a pupil of Lotti. He ranks among the most eminent composers of comic operas, producing no less than 112 operas and 3 dramatic cantatas in every musical centre of Europe. He also composed much church music and some notable piano sonatas.
[7] Oskar Bie; Die Oper (1914).
[8] Bohuslav Czernohorsky (1684-1740) was a Franciscan monk, native of Bohemia, but successively choirmaster in Padua and Assisi, where Tartini was his pupil. He was highly esteemed as an ecclesiastical composer. At the time when Gluck was his pupil he was director of the music at St. Jacob’s, Prague.
[9] Born 1712; died 1778. Though not a trained musician he evinced a lively interest in the art from his youth. Besides his Devin du village, which remained in the French operatic repertoire for sixty years, he wrote a ballet opera, Les Muses galantes, and fragments of an opera, Daphnis et Chloé. His lyrical scene, Pygmalion, set to music first by Coignet, then by Asplmayr, was the point of departure of the so-called ‘melodrama’ (spoken dialogue with musical accompaniment). He also wrote a Dictionnaire de musique (1767).
[10] Le petit prophète de Boehmisch-Broda has been identified by historians with the founder of the Mannheim school, Johann Stamitz, for the latter was born in Deutsch-Brod (Bohemia), and but two years before had set Paris by the ears with his orchestral ‘sonatas.’ The hero of the Grimm pamphlet is a poor musician, who by dream magic is transferred from his bare attic chamber to the glittering hall of the Paris opera. He turns away, aghast at the heartlessness of the spectacle and music.
[11] Pierre Alexandre Monsigny, born near St. Omer, 1729, died, Paris, 1817. Les aveux indiscrets (1759); Le cadi dupé (1760); On ne s’avise jamais de tout (1761); Rose et Colas (1764), etc., are his chief successes in opera comique.
[12] François-André-Danican Philidor, born, Dreux, 1726; died, London, 1795. Talented as a chess player he entered international contests successfully, and wrote an analysis of the game. His love for composition awoke suddenly and he made his comic-opera debut in 1759. His best works are: Le maréchal férant (1761); Tom Jones (1765), which brought an innovation—the a capelli vocal quartet; and Ernelinde, princesse de Norvège (1767), a grand opera.
[13] Sonnenfels, a contemporary Viennese critic, was active in his endeavors to uplift the German stage. (Briefe über die Wienerische Schaubühne, Vienna, 1768.)