PICCINNI, NICCOLA (1728-1800)

This article appears in Volume V21, Page 580 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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PICCINNI, NICCOLA (1728-1800) , Italian musical composer, was born at Bari on the 16th of January 1728. He was educated under Leo and Durante, at the Conservatorio di Sant' Onofrio in Naples. For this Piccinni had to thank the intervention of the bishop of Bari, his father, although himself a musician, being opposed to his son's following a musical career. His first opera, Le Donne dispettose, was produced in 1755, and in 176o he composed, at Rome, the chef d'oeuvre of his early life, La Cecchina, ossia la boon
Figliuola, an opera buff a which attained a European success. Six ~ reign of Conradin, and again returned to Siena with the help years after this Piccinni was invited by Queen.Marie Antoinette
to Paris. He had married in 1756 his pupil Vincenza Sibilla, a

singer

SINGER, SIMEON (1846-1906)

, whom he never allowed after her

marriage

MARRIAGE

to appear on the stage. All his next works were successful; but, unhappily, the directors of the Grand Opera conceived the mad idea of deliberately opposing him to Gluck, by persuading the two composers to treat the same subjectIphigenie en Tauridesimultaneously. The Parisian public now divided itself into two rival parties, which, under the names of Gluckists and Piccinnists, carried on an unworthy and disgraceful 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 attempt was after-wards made to inaugurate a new rivalry with Sacchini. Still, Piccinni held a good position, and on the death of Gluck, in 1787, proposed that a public

monument

MONUMENT (Lat. monumentum or monumentum; from monere, to advise, bring to mind, remind; the German equivalent is Denkmal)

should be erected to his memorya suggestion which the Gluckists themselves declined to support. In 1784 Piccinni was professor at the Royal School of Music, one of the institutions from which the 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 King Ferdinand IV.; but the

marriage

MARRIAGE

of his daughter to a French democrat brought him into irretrievable disgrace. For nine years after this he maintained a

precarious

PRECARIOUS

existence in Venice, Naples and Rome; but he returned in 1798 to Paris, where the fickle public received him with enthusiasm, but 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

house

HOUSE
HOUSE (O. Eng. hiss, a word common to Teutonic languages, cf. Dut. huis, Ger. Haus; in
Gothic
- GOTHIC
it is only found in gudhiss, a temple; it may be ultimately connected with the root of " hide," conceal)

in which he was born at Bari.
The most complete

list

LIST (O.E.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
, a Teutonic word, cf. Dut. lust, Ger. Leiste, adapted in Ital. lista and Fr.
lisle
- LISLE, ALICE (c. 1614-1685)
)
LIST,
FRIEDRICH
- FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )
(1789-1846)

of his works is that given in the Rivista musicale italiana, viii. 75. He produced over eighty operas, but although his later

work

WORK

shows the influence of the French and German stage, he belongs to the conventional Italian school of the 18th century.
See also P. L. Ginguene, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de Niccolo Piccinni (Paris, 18o1) ; E. Demoiresterres, La Musique francaise au 18' siecle Gluck et Piccinni 17941800 (Paris, 1872).

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