Durante, Francesco 03/31/1684 - 09/30/1755

Francesco Durante (1684-1755) was an Italian composer of the Baroque period. He was born in Frattamaggiore and received his musical education in Naples at the conservatories of the Poveri del Gesu Cristo -- Poor of Jesus Christ (with Gaetano Greco) and Saint Onofrio (with Alessandro Scarlatti). Later he dedicated himself, after studying in Rome, to a thorough study of the masterworks of the Roman school and in 1718 was appointed to the director of the Conservatorio dei Poveri di Giesù Cristo, a position he exchanged in 1742 with the director of the Conservatory Santa Maria di Loreto. He died in Naples.



Durante's compositions belong only to the church and the chamber (he wrote nothing for the theater) and consist of numerous masses, hymns, motets, and other works, mostly written for four obligato voices and in the then new concertante style.



He preserved, as teacher and performer, the traditions of the Roman school of Palestrina for Italian church music, in a time when this was in danger of becoming overrun by opera.



For this reason he deserves to be named, along with Leonardo Leo, first among the representatives of the Neapolitan school founded by Alessandro Scarlatti, which in the course of the century gained unlimited dominance in Europe through a series of famous composers: Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Piccinni, Niccolò Jommelli and Giovanni Paisiello.