Jommelli, Niccolò (1714-1774)

Italian composer. During his lifetime he was famous as an opera composer throughout Italy and in Vienna, Austria, writing over 50 opere serie (treating classical subjects in a formal style) and more than 20 comic operas. He also wrote sacred cantatas, oratorios, and Masses.

He studied with Francesco Durante, Francesco Feo, and Leonardo Leo in Naples, made his debut as an opera composer there in 1737, and soon achieved widespread fame. He was Kapellmeister to the Duke of Württemberg at Stuttgart 1753-69. He then returned to Naples, but was unable to recapture his old success in Italy; he had developed the dry conventions of the Metastasian opera seria, but the Neapolitans were turning their attentions to comic opera.

Works Opera Ricimero (1740), Ezio (three settings: 1741, 1748, 1758), Semiramide (1741), Sofonisba (1746), Artaserse (1949), Ifigenia in Aulide (1751), Talestri, Attilio Regolo (1753), Fetonte, La clemenza di Tito (two settings: 1753, 1765), Pelope, Il matrimonio per concorso, La schiava liberata, Armida (1770), Ifigenia in Tauride (1771).

Choral oratorios Isacco, Betulia liberata (1743), Santa Elena al Calvario, and others; cantatas.

Church music Passion oratorio, Miserere, Masses and other church music.

Other symphonies and other instrumental music.