| Contents |
I. the Scarlattino, alias the Sicilian -- The genius of Parthenope, the glory of the Sebeto, the delight of Mergellina -- Maecenas atavis edite regibus -- ... a falling virtu -- ... in Palermo, with the universal indulgence of all the Virtuosi and composers of music -- ... an eagle, whose wings are grown -- Fugue for two voices, with some liberties -- Polish Intermezzi -- I was born of a Gallic cock a simple hen, /lived among the pole-try and then a queen -- Polish Intermezzi -- To Rome I came, Christian and not Christine -- A time of penitence and of darkness -- Fugue in two voices with many artifices -- Roseingrave, Handel, and the devil -- Bloodless disputes of courteous patrons, against the background of a war which only indirectly besieges Rome -- ... et petisse, ut vellet, ipsum emancipare et a Patria potestate, et paternis nexibus liberare -- Music, the solace of illustrious souls. |
| Abstract |
Alessandro Scarlatti is one of the most celebrated and least performed composers of the Baroque, and his son Domenico remains one of the most enigmatic figures of the period. This book examines the relationship between father and son, interpreted in the context of seventeenth-century Sicilian culture. This study in historical anthropology is filled with new documentation on the lives and careers of the two men, but the boundaries between documented and informed speculation are clearly marked. At the heart of the relation between the two Scarlatti's lies Domenico's famous legal emancipation from his father, which has generally been viewed as a bold act of personal and artistic defiance. The author reveals, through a corrected text and translation of the crabbed Latin notarial document, that it was actually a renunciation of the ancient Roman patria potestas, a fathers' power of life and death over his children. |
