Giovanni Battista Pergolesi Essentials

This Italian composer crossed the wide stylistic divide between comic opera—with works such as La Serva Padrona—and church music, as with his Stabat mater, which influenced Bach. It was the audience-pleasing verve of his operas, however, that changed the course of classical music by mounting a challenge to the more lyric style of French comedy. (The debate in 18th-century French papers was dubbed the War of the Buffoons.) Today, all classical partisans can recognize the boisterous spirit of works like Pergolesi's Flute Concerto in G Major, as well as the winning charm of his dramas.