The Church Music of Davide Perez and Niccol˜ Jommelli

The Church Music of Davide Perez and Niccol˜ JommelliThis is a study of the church music by Davide Perez and Niccol Jommelli and of how their styles evolved in relation to social and aesthetic influences. Both Neapolitans, they were amongst the most eminent composers in eighteenth century Europe. In many aspects their lives followed a parallel progress, interweaving with persons and institutions in Naples, Rome, Vienna, Venice, and Lisbon. Jommelli has always had a place in the histories of music as a

This is a study of the church music by Davide Perez and Niccol˜ Jommelli and of how their styles evolved in relation to social and aesthetic influences. Both Neapolitans, they were amongst the most eminent composers in eighteenth-century Europe. In many aspects their lives followed a parallel progress, interweaving with persons and institutions in Naples, Rome, Vienna, Venice, and Lisbon. Jommelli has always had a place in the histories of music as a reformer of opera seria. Perez howeverÑa musician who after one of the brightest careers in mid-century operatic Italy, dedicated himself for his last twenty-three years almost exclusively to church musicÑwas unjustifiably almost completely forgotten. The second part has to do with the funeral music. This comprises the Office and Masses of the Dead, and the Triduum offices, which is very similar to the former. Their musicÑwhich presents the Christian hope for personal immortality in a very sentimental and melancholic mood Ñ is quoted extensively.