View source for Niccolo Piccinni

'''Niccolo Piccinni''', (1728-1800) was an [[Italian]] composer who, for a time in [[Paris]] in the 1770s and 1780s rivalled [[Christoph Willibald von Gluck]] in immediate influence, but has languished in long-term popularity. 

He was an extremely popular composer of [[opera]]s and sacred works in [[Italy]] before venturing to [[Paris]] in 1776, where his success brought about a “war of the Gluckists and the Piccinnists” that occasionally came to blows (though not, it seems, between the two gentlemen concerned - Gluck at least is known to have enjoyed Piccinni's work.) Piccinni was forced back to Italy by the [[French Revolution]], returned to Paris in 1798, but died there, in poverty, in 1800. 

He wrote many successful operas in both Italy and France, was flexible in both style and form, moving between the tragic and the comic according to the needs of the audience, and was admired for the elegance of his writing. Whilst now not a major figure like Gluck, his operas are still occasionally performed, and at least four of them are currently on CD. 

Reference: “The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music”

== See also ==

*[[Antonio Vivaldi]]
*[[Tomaso Albinoni]]
*[[Giuseppe Verdi]]
*[[Gioacchino Rossini]]
*[[Giacomo Puccini]]


[[Category:Composers]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piccinni, Niccolo}}