Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi

[1] A child prodigy, Guglielmi's talent as a musician earned him the favor of the Duke of Massa who took an interest in supporting his musical development.

[1]At that conservatory he was a pupil of Francesco Durante, and in 1750 he was appointed a primo maestrino (a post responsible for teaching younger students) at that institution.

[1] His first operatic work, produced at Turin in 1755, established his reputation, and soon his fame spread beyond the limits of his own country, so that in 1762 he was called to Dresden to conduct the opera there.

[2] He was a very prolific composer of Italian dramma giocoso and commedia per musica operas, and there is in most of his scores a vein of humour and natural gaiety not surpassed by Domenico Cimarosa himself.

Considering the enormous number of his works, his unequal workmanship and the frequent instances of mechanical and slipshod writing in his music need not surprise us.