Pietro Alessandro Gaspare Scarlatti (1660-1725) was an Italian composer. Over 600 of his chamber cantatas survive; they represent the peak of the genre. The most outstanding and influential operatic writer of his day, he founded the so-called Neapolitan opera school.

The operas by Alessandro Scarlatti that primarily influenced his younger contemporaries were written during his first sojourn in Naples, when he felt obliged to cater to Neapolitan taste--one that preferred simple, immediately attractive melodies, embellished with coloratura, and that elevated the importance of the solo singer, especially the castrato, to unprecedented heights, and, as a result, severely limited the number of ensembles and the role of the orchestra. Three other important features of this period are the increasing use of the da capo form of aria, which by the turn of the century virtually ousted all other forms; the establishing of the so-called Italian overture, or sinfonia, as a...