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Carlo Francesco Pollarolo (ca. 1653-1723) He was born in Brescia. Pollarolo was probably a pupil of his father, Orazio Pollarolo, organist in Brescia at the parish church of SS Nazaro e Celso (c1665–1669) and at the cathedral (1669–c1675). Before 1676, in which year his son Antonio Pollarolo was born, Carlo Francesco was organist at the Congregazione dei Padri della Pace, and he substituted for his father at the cathedral for more than a year before being named his successor on 18 December 1676 (it is not known why Orazio had left the city or where he went). On becoming organist at the cathedral Carlo Francesco relinquished his other post. The records of SS Nazaro e Celso establish his marriage in 1674 and the baptisms of his first two children. The family moved at least twice to different parishes of the city, for the baptisms of the next two children, in 1678 and 1679, are recorded at S Afra, whereas those of four more children between 1682 and 1689 are recorded at S Zeno. During these years Pollarolo advanced rapidly in his profession. On 12 February 1680 the maestro di cappella, Pietro Pelli, resigned his position at Brescia Cathedral, and Pollarolo was elected capo musico in his place. On 7 June 1681 he assumed a comparable position in the Accademia degli Erranti, a society devoted to ‘letters, arms, and music’; he probably continued in this capacity until 1689. His first opera, Venere travestita, had been performed at the Accademia in 1678. A libretto records the performance in 1680 of his earliest oratorio, La fenice, the music of which is lost. From 1685 on his activity as opera and oratorio composer intensified: I delirii per amore was given at Brescia, La Rosinda in Vienna (both in 1685), Il demone amante, overo Giugurta opened the 1686 season in Venice, followed the same year by Il Licurgo, overo Il cieco d’acuta vista. His Roderico (1687), La costanza gelosa negl’amori di Cefalo e Procri (1688) and Alarico re de Gotti (1689) were given at Verona, and a version of Antonino e Pompeiano with most of the music by Pollarolo at the Teatro in Brescia in 1689. Thus he was an established composer before his arrival in Venice. He and his family must have left Brescia by the end of 1689, when a new organist (G.B. Quaglia) was elected at the cathedral, but his younger brother Paolo (b 1672) and the latter’s son Orazio (d 1765), who composed a few operas, pursued musical careers in Brescia. His daughter Giulia married the organ builder Giacinto Pescetti, a fellow Brescian, in 1697 and the opera composer Giovanni Battista Pescetti was their son.
On 13 August 1690 Carlo Francesco was elected second organist at S Marco, Venice. Two years later he attained the position of vicemaestro di cappella, an unusually quick advancement. From 1691 his operas were performed in the Venetian theatres at the rate of one or more each year. He dominated the most reputable opera house in the city, S Giovanni Grisostomo, from about 1691 to about 1707 and also had works staged at S Angelo, S Cassiano, S Fantino and other theatres in and outside Venice. The Pollarolo family settled in the parish of S Simeon Grande in Venice, where a further son was born in 1692. Ten years later Carlo Francesco competed for the position of primo maestro at the cathedral but lost the election by one vote to Antonio Biffi. His letter of application refers to his seven children. Three months later Pollarolo was ‘giubilato’, i.e. relieved of his regular duties without loss of status, and his son Antonio took over his duties as vicemaestro. But Pollarolo’s activity as an opera composer had reached a peak and continued strongly until about 1720. His best works date from the period from 1690 to 1705. His tenure as musical director of the Ospedale degli Incurabili, one of the four famous Venetian conservatories, can be ascertained from librettos and from Coronelli’s Guida de’ forestieri: it dated at least from 1696 to 1718, perhaps even to 1722. The librettos of the Latin oratorios Tertius crucis triumphus (1703), Samson vindicatus (1706), Joseph in Aegypto (1707), Rex regum (1716) and Davidis de Goliath triumphus (1718) establish his authorship of the music as well as his position at the Incurabili. He wrote music for other institutions and occasions too: in 1697 an oratorio, Il combattimento degli angioli, for S Maria della Consolazione (La Fava), and in 1699 an intermezzo, Il giudizio di Paride, for the Accademia degli Animosi, whose guiding spirit was Apostolo Zeno. Then in 1716 Pollarolo composed a cantata, Fede, Valore, Gloria e Fama (in which Faustina Bordoni sang the part of Faith), for the Austrian ambassador to Venice, and the wedding of the ambassador’s son in 1721 was celebrated with Pollarolo’s music to Il pescatore disingannato. His last stage work was the opera L’Arminio, produced in November 1722, when he was already suffering from his final illness, which lasted six months. He was buried in S Maria di Nazareth, known as the church of the Scalzi, located on the bank of the Grand Canal in Venice. Pollarolo was also famous as a performer: in 1710 Don G. Desiderio counted him, with Francesco Gasparini and Vinaccesi, as one of the ‘tre de’ primi virtuosi de questa dominante’ (Talbot, 74) and Galliard mentioned him among ‘the foremost masters for the harpsichord’ (Raguenet).
Grove
Giulio Cesare nell’Egitto, dramma per musica en tres actos (1713). Aria: Sdegnoso turbine.
Ariodante, dramma per musica en tres actos (1716). Aria: Già mi par.
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