Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801)

Italian musical composer, was born at Aversa, in. the kingdom of Naples, on the 17th of December 1749. His parents were poor, but anxious to give their son a good education; and after removing to Naples they sent him to a free school connected with one of the monasteries of that city. The organist of the monastery, Padre Polcano, was struck with the boy's intellect, and voluntarily instructed him in the elements of music, as also in the ancient and modern Literature of his country. To his influence Cimarosa owed a free scholarship at the musical institute of Santa Maria di Loreto, where he remained for eleven years, studying chiefly the great masters of the old Italian school. Piccini, Sacchini and other musicians of repute are mentioned amongst his teachers. At the age of twenty-three Cimarosa began his career as a composer with a comic opera called Le Strava gauze del Conte, first performed at the Teatro del Fiorentini at Naples in 1772. The work met with approval, and was followed in the same year by Le Pazzie di Siehlidanza e di Zoroastro, a farce full of humour and eccentricity. This work also was successful, and the fame of the young composer began to spread all over Italy. in 1774 he was invited to Rome to write an opera for the stagione of that year; and he there produced another comic opera called L'Itahiana in Londra. - Malaspina Biography

Sheet music: Domenico Cimarosa