O Cessate Di Piagarmi
Alessandro Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 24 October 1725) was a Baroque composer … Read Full Bio ↴Alessandro Scarlatti (2 May 1660 – 24 October 1725) was a Baroque composer especially famous for his operas and chamber cantatas. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti.
Scarlatti was born in Sicily, either in Trapani or Palermo. He is generally said to have been a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi in Rome, and there is reason to suppose that he had some connection with northern Italy, since his early works show the influence of Alessandro Stradella and Giovanni Legrenzi.
The production at Rome of his opera Gli Equivoci nell’amore (1679) gained him the protection of Queen Christina of Sweden (who at the time was living in Rome), and he became her maestro di cappella. In February 1684 he became maestro di cappella to the viceroy of Naples, through the influence of his sister, an opera singer, who was the mistress of an influential Neapolitan noble. Here he produced a long series of operas, remarkable chiefly for their fluency and expressiveness, as well as other music for state occasions.
In 1702 Scarlatti left Naples and did not return until the Spanish domination had been superseded by that of the Austrians. In the interval he enjoyed the patronage of Ferdinand III of Tuscany, for whose private theatre near Florence he composed operas, and of Cardinal Ottoboni, who made him his maestro di cappella, and procured him a similar post at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 1703.
After visiting Venice and Urbino in 1707, Scarlatti took up his duties at Naples again in 1708, and remained there until 1717. By this time Naples seems to have become tired of his music; the Romans, however, appreciated it better, and it was at the Teatro Capranica in Rome that he produced some of his finest operas (Telemaco, 1718; Marco Attilio Regolò, 1719; Griselda, 1721), as well as some noble specimens of church music, including a mass for chorus and orchestra, composed in honor of Saint Cecilia for Cardinal Acquaviva in 1721. His last work on a large scale appears to have been the unfinished serenata for the marriage of the prince of Stigliano in 1723. Scarlatti died in Naples.
Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century, with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and the classical school of the 18th century, which culminated in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His early operas retain the older cadences in their recitatives, and a considerable variety of neatly constructed forms in their charming little arias, accompanied sometimes by the string quartet, treated with careful elaboration, sometimes by the harpsichord alone.
By 1686 he had definitely established the "Italian overture" form and had abandoned the ground bass and the binary form air in two stanzas in favour of the ternary form or da capo type of air.
From about 1697 onwards, lnfluenced partly perhaps by the style of Giovanni Bononcini and probably more by the taste of the viceregal court, his opera arias become more conventional and commonplace in rhythm, while his scoring is hasty and crude, yet not without brilliance, the oboes and trumpets being frequently used, and the violins often playing in unison. The operas composed for Ferdinand de' Medici are lost; they might have given a more favourable idea of his style as his correspondence with the prince shows that they were composed with a very sincere sense of inspiration.
Mitridate Eupatore, accounted his masterpiece, composed for Venice in 1707, contains music far in advance of anything that Scarlatti had written for Naples, both in technique and in intellectual power. The later Neapolitan operas are showy and effective rather than profoundly emotional; the instrumentation marks a great advance on previous work, since the main duty of accompanying the voice is thrown upon the string quartet, the harpsichord being reserved exclusively for the noisy instrumental ritornelli. In his opera Teodora (1697) he originated the use of the orchestral ritornello.
His last group of operas, composed for Rome, exhibit a deeper poetic feeling, a broad and dignified style of melody, a strong dramatic sense, especially in accompanied recitatives, a device which he himself had been the first to use as early as 1686 and a much more modern style of orchestration, the horns appearing for the first time, and being treated with striking effect.
Besides the operas, oratorios and serenatas, which all exhibit a similar style, Scarlatti composed upwards of five hundred chamber-cantatas for solo voice. These represent the most intellectual type of chamber-music of their period, and it is to be regretted that they have remained almost entirely in manuscript, since a careful study of them is indispensable to anyone who wishes to form an adequate idea of Scarlatti's development.
His few remaining masses (the story of his having composed two hundred is hardly credible) and church music in general are comparatively unimportant, except the great St Cecilia Mass (1721), which is one of the first attempts at the style which reached its height in the great masses of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. His instrumental music, though not without interest, is curiously antiquated as compared with his vocal works.
Scarlatti was born in Sicily, either in Trapani or Palermo. He is generally said to have been a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi in Rome, and there is reason to suppose that he had some connection with northern Italy, since his early works show the influence of Alessandro Stradella and Giovanni Legrenzi.
The production at Rome of his opera Gli Equivoci nell’amore (1679) gained him the protection of Queen Christina of Sweden (who at the time was living in Rome), and he became her maestro di cappella. In February 1684 he became maestro di cappella to the viceroy of Naples, through the influence of his sister, an opera singer, who was the mistress of an influential Neapolitan noble. Here he produced a long series of operas, remarkable chiefly for their fluency and expressiveness, as well as other music for state occasions.
In 1702 Scarlatti left Naples and did not return until the Spanish domination had been superseded by that of the Austrians. In the interval he enjoyed the patronage of Ferdinand III of Tuscany, for whose private theatre near Florence he composed operas, and of Cardinal Ottoboni, who made him his maestro di cappella, and procured him a similar post at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome in 1703.
After visiting Venice and Urbino in 1707, Scarlatti took up his duties at Naples again in 1708, and remained there until 1717. By this time Naples seems to have become tired of his music; the Romans, however, appreciated it better, and it was at the Teatro Capranica in Rome that he produced some of his finest operas (Telemaco, 1718; Marco Attilio Regolò, 1719; Griselda, 1721), as well as some noble specimens of church music, including a mass for chorus and orchestra, composed in honor of Saint Cecilia for Cardinal Acquaviva in 1721. His last work on a large scale appears to have been the unfinished serenata for the marriage of the prince of Stigliano in 1723. Scarlatti died in Naples.
Scarlatti's music forms an important link between the early Baroque Italian vocal styles of the 17th century, with their centers in Florence, Venice and Rome, and the classical school of the 18th century, which culminated in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. His early operas retain the older cadences in their recitatives, and a considerable variety of neatly constructed forms in their charming little arias, accompanied sometimes by the string quartet, treated with careful elaboration, sometimes by the harpsichord alone.
By 1686 he had definitely established the "Italian overture" form and had abandoned the ground bass and the binary form air in two stanzas in favour of the ternary form or da capo type of air.
From about 1697 onwards, lnfluenced partly perhaps by the style of Giovanni Bononcini and probably more by the taste of the viceregal court, his opera arias become more conventional and commonplace in rhythm, while his scoring is hasty and crude, yet not without brilliance, the oboes and trumpets being frequently used, and the violins often playing in unison. The operas composed for Ferdinand de' Medici are lost; they might have given a more favourable idea of his style as his correspondence with the prince shows that they were composed with a very sincere sense of inspiration.
Mitridate Eupatore, accounted his masterpiece, composed for Venice in 1707, contains music far in advance of anything that Scarlatti had written for Naples, both in technique and in intellectual power. The later Neapolitan operas are showy and effective rather than profoundly emotional; the instrumentation marks a great advance on previous work, since the main duty of accompanying the voice is thrown upon the string quartet, the harpsichord being reserved exclusively for the noisy instrumental ritornelli. In his opera Teodora (1697) he originated the use of the orchestral ritornello.
His last group of operas, composed for Rome, exhibit a deeper poetic feeling, a broad and dignified style of melody, a strong dramatic sense, especially in accompanied recitatives, a device which he himself had been the first to use as early as 1686 and a much more modern style of orchestration, the horns appearing for the first time, and being treated with striking effect.
Besides the operas, oratorios and serenatas, which all exhibit a similar style, Scarlatti composed upwards of five hundred chamber-cantatas for solo voice. These represent the most intellectual type of chamber-music of their period, and it is to be regretted that they have remained almost entirely in manuscript, since a careful study of them is indispensable to anyone who wishes to form an adequate idea of Scarlatti's development.
His few remaining masses (the story of his having composed two hundred is hardly credible) and church music in general are comparatively unimportant, except the great St Cecilia Mass (1721), which is one of the first attempts at the style which reached its height in the great masses of Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. His instrumental music, though not without interest, is curiously antiquated as compared with his vocal works.
O Cessate Di Piagarmi
Alessandro Scarlatti Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
O cessate di piagarmi,
O lasciatemi morir!
Luc' ingrate,
Dispietate,
Luc' ingrate,
Dispietate,
Più del gelo e più del marmi
Fredde e sorde a' miei martir.
Fredde e sorde a' miei martir!!!
O cessate di piagarmi,
O lasciatemi morir!
O lasciatemi morir!
Luc' ingrate,
Dispietate,
Luc' ingrate,
Dispietate,
Più del gelo e più del marmi
Fredde e sorde a' miei martir.
O cessate di piagarmi,
O lasciatemi morir!
The lyrics to Alessandro Scarlatti's song O Cessate Di Piagarmi express a sense of despair and desperation. The singer implores their beloved to stop causing them pain and to instead let them die. The repetition of "Luc' ingrate" and "dispietate" underscores the singer's hurt and frustration with their lover's indifference. They describe their agony as being greater than the coldness of ice and the hardness of marble. The use of hyperbolic imagery paints a picture of the singer's pain as being almost unbearable.
Line by Line Meaning
O cessate di piagarmi,
Oh, stop tormenting me,
O lasciatemi morir!
Oh, let me die!
Luc' ingrate, Dispietate,
Cruel and pitiless eyes,
Luc' ingrate, Dispietate,
Cruel and pitiless eyes,
Più del gelo e più del marmi
Colder than ice and marble
Fredde e sorde a' miei martir.
Deaf and indifferent to my suffering.
Fredde e sorde a' miei martir!!!
Deaf and indifferent to my suffering!!!
O cessate di piagarmi,
Oh, stop tormenting me,
O lasciatemi morir!
Oh, let me die!
Writer(s): Alessandro Parisotti, Alessandro Scarlatti
Contributed by Jayden W. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
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@hannahmikulin
not me finally looking at this piece 3 days before i have to perform it for choir memorized
@aaliyahmiller1382
I got an audition for Regional Honor Choir today and I forgot my music at school so in other words I'm screwed.
@bahiaomari1788
Same 😢
@anthonydiaz4803
I'm learning how to do this piece so hopefully it goes well 😅
@kaylaadams4133
Real
@alyssamariemusic23
For me it's my college class I have to sing six pieces all memorized 😭
@lizzywatkins5676
I am learning this a day before I audition for a chamber choir… Wish me luck
@cherry3911
I am practicing this for my lesson.
Sorry my neighbor.
@vitazadnik6425
Same
@cherry3911
Really❗️❓😂