Alessandro Scarlatti was an Italian Baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 especially famous for his opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

s and chamber cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

s. He is considered the founder of the Neapolitan school

Neapolitan School

In music history, the Neapolitan School is a group, associated with opera, of 18th century composers who studied or worked in Naples, Italy. The best known of which is Alessandro Scarlatti, with whom, "modern opera begins"....

 of opera. He was the father of two other composers, Domenico Scarlatti

Domenico Scarlatti

Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer who spent much of his life in the service of the Portuguese and Spanish royal families. He is classified as a Baroque composer chronologically, although his music was influential in the development of the Classical style...

 and Pietro Filippo Scarlatti

Pietro Filippo Scarlatti

Pietro Filippo Scarlatti was an Italian composer, organist and choirmaster.He was born in Rome, the eldest of Alessandro Scarlatti's children and a brother of composer Domenico Scarlatti - began his musical career in 1705 as choirmaster of the cathedral of Urbino...

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Scarlatti was born in Palermo

Palermo

Palermo is a city in Southern Italy, the capital of both the autonomous region of Sicily and the Province of Palermo. The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old...

, then part of the Kingdom of Sicily

Kingdom of Sicily

The Kingdom of Sicily was a state that existed in the south of Italy from its founding by Roger II in 1130 until 1816. It was a successor state of the County of Sicily, which had been founded in 1071 during the Norman conquest of southern Italy...

. He is generally said to have been a pupil of Giacomo Carissimi

Giacomo Carissimi

Giacomo Carissimi was an Italian composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.-Biography:...

 in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, and some theorize that he had some connection with northern Italy because his early works seem to show the influence of Stradella

Alessandro Stradella

Alessandro Stradella was an Italian composer of the middle baroque. He enjoyed a dazzling career as a freelance composer, writing on commission, collaborating with distinguished poets, producing over three hundred works in a variety of genres.-Life:Not much is known about his early life, but he...

 and Legrenzi

Giovanni Legrenzi

Giovanni Legrenzi was an Italian composer of opera, vocal and instrumental music, and organist, of the Baroque era...

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