Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

Giovanni Battista Draghi, known as "Pergolesi" (after his family's ancestral home in the Marche region of Italy), composed almost all of his significant music in the space of just five years, between his graduation from a conservatory in Naples in 1731 and his tragically early death of tuberculosis, aged just 26, in March 1736. It's fruitless to speculate upon what he might have achieved had he lived longer, but the works that he did complete possess a freshness, an originality and an emotional power that have given them an influence (and a popularity) out of all proportion to their small number. His surviving music includes orchestral sinfonias, six full-length operas and two Mass settings (both from 1732). But his most enduring legacy lies with two very different masterpieces: the lyrical, powerfully emotional Stabat Mater, completed in 1736 shortly before his death, and the intermezzo (a short comic opera) La Serva Padrona (1733) whose youthful verve and rapid-fire musical wit had an influence on opera that extended to Rameau, Mozart, Rossini and even (in the 20th century) Stravinsky. Both are still frequently performed and enjoyed on their own melodious and brilliantly accomplished terms.