Giovanni Battista Draghi was an Italian composer, violinist and organist.
Background
He was born on January 4, 1710 in Jesi in what is now the Province of Ancona (but was then the Papal States), he was commonly given the nickname "Pergolesi", a demonym indicating in Italian the residents of Pergola, Marche, the birthplace of his ancestors.
Education
He studied music in Jesi under a local musician, Francesco Santini, before going to Naples in 1725, where he studied under Gaetano Greco and Francesco Feo among others.
Career
His obvious talent led to his enrollment in the famous Conservatorio dei Poveri di Gesù Cristo in Naples, under the patronage of the Marchese Cardolo Maria Pianetti of lesi.
His first truly successful works were written later that year: Lo frate 'nnammorato was an opera buffa written in the local dialect; and a Mass commissioned by the city after a series of earthquakes won public praise from the composer Leonardo Leo.
A series of dramatic and sacred works followed, including an apparently minor one, the intermezzo La serva padrona, performed between the acts of his opera seria II prigionier superbo in 1733.
Pergolesi was made deputy to the official maestro di cappella of the city of Naples, was twice summoned to Rome to direct performances of operatic and sacred works, and was for a time in the service of the Prince of Stigliano and the Duke of Maddaloni.
At the time of his death Pergolesi appeared to have been a talented composer of largely local fame, but circumstances thrust him into the small group of people whose posthumous fame was greater than that achieved during their lifetime.
La serva padrona was revived in Parma in 1738, then done in Bologna, Graz, Venice, and Dresden, and soon in all parts of Europe.
The freshness of its character delineation and music attracted those who were weary of the stilted conventions of opera seria.
Parisians who were disillusioned with traditional French opera—among them the writers Friedrich Melchior Grimm, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot—rallied behind the work and made it an issue inthe War of the Buffoons.
With the fame of La serva padrona came success also for other of Pergolesi's compositions that might otherwise have remained neglected.
His best pieces are characterized by freshness and liveliness and a fluid handling of solo voices.
A large number of sacred, secular, and instrumental works published after his death and attributed to him are undoubtedly spurious.