Neapolitan School

In music history, the Neapolitan School is a group, associated with opera, of 17th and 18th-century composers who studied or worked in Naples, Italy, the best known of whom is Alessandro Scarlatti, with whom “modern opera begins”. Francesco Provenzale is generally considered the school’s founder. Other significant composers of this school are Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Piccinni, Domenico Cimarosa and Giovanni Paisiello. It also addressed other musical genres, particularly the oratorio and the concerto. The Neapolitan School has been considered in between the Roman School and the Venetian School in importance. However, “The concept of Neapolitan school, or more particularly Neapolitan opera, has been questioned by a number of scholars. That Naples was a significant musical center in the 18th century is beyond doubt. Whether the composers working in Naples at that time developed or partook of a distinct and characteristic musical style is less clear” since so little is known about the repertory. Background In the second half of the 17th century, a more purist and classicist style began in Naples, with simplified plots and more cultured and sophisticated operas. At that time