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PICCINNI, NICCOLA (1728-1800)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 580 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PICCINNI, NICCOLA (1728-1800) , See also:Italian musical composer, was See also:born at See also:Bari on the 16th of See also:January 1728. He was educated under See also:Leo and See also:Durante, at the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio in See also:Naples. For this Piccinni had to thank the intervention of the See also:bishop of Bari, his See also:father, although himself a musician, being opposed to his son's following a musical career. His first See also:opera, Le See also:Donne dispettose, was produced in 1755, and in 176o he composed, at See also:Rome, the chef d'oeuvre of his See also:early See also:life, La Cecchina, ossia la boon Figliuola, an opera See also:buff a which attained a See also:European success. Six ~ reign of See also:Conradin, and again returned to See also:Siena with the help years after this Piccinni was invited by See also:Queen.See also:Marie Antoinette to See also:Paris. He had married in 1756 his See also:pupil Vincenza Sibilla, a See also:singer, whom he never allowed after her See also:marriage to appear on the See also:stage. All his next See also:works were successful; but, unhappily, the See also:directors of the See also:Grand Opera conceived the mad See also:idea of deliberately opposing him to See also:Gluck, by persuading the two composers to treat the same subject—Iphigenie en Tauride—simultaneously. The Parisian public now divided itself into two See also:rival parties, which, under the names of Gluckists and Piccinnists, carried on an unworthy and disgraceful See also:war. Gluck's masterly Iphigenie was first produced on the 18th of May 1779. Piccinni's Iphigenie followed on the 23rd of January 1781, and, though performed seventeen times, was afterwards consigned to oblivion. The fury of the rival parties continued unabated, even after Gluck's departure from Paris in 1780; and an See also:attempt was after-wards made to inaugurate a new rivalry with See also:Sacchini. Still, Piccinni held a See also:good position, and on the See also:death of Gluck, in 1787, proposed that a public See also:monument should be erected to his memory—a See also:suggestion which the Gluckists themselves declined to support.

In 1784 Piccinni was See also:

professor at the Royal School of See also:Music, one of the institutions from which the See also:Conservatoire was formed in 1794. On the breaking out of the Revolution in 1789 Piccinni returned to Naples, where he was at first well received by See also:King See also:Ferdinand IV.; but the marriage of his daughter to a See also:French democrat brought him into irretrievable disgrace. For nine years after this he maintained a See also:precarious existence in See also:Venice, Naples and Rome; but he returned in 1798 to Paris, where the fickle public received him with See also:enthusiasm, but See also:left him to starve. He died at Passy, near Paris, on the 7th of May 'Soo. After his death a memorial tablet was set up in the See also:house in which he was born at Bari. The most See also:complete See also:list of his works is that given in the Rivista musicale italiana, viii. 75. He produced over eighty operas, but although his later See also:work shows the See also:influence of the French and See also:German stage, he belongs to the conventional Italian school of the 18th See also:century. See also P. L. Ginguene, See also:Notice sur la See also:vie et See also:les ouvrages de Niccolo Piccinni (Paris, 18o1) ; E. Demoiresterres, La Musique francaise au 18' siecle Gluck et Piccinni 1794–1800 (Paris, 1872).

End of Article: PICCINNI, NICCOLA (1728-1800)

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