Alessandro Stradella was an extraordinarily prolific Baroque composer, a musical innovator, and, it would seem, an accomplished seducer. His talent led, fifteen years ago, to the creation of a festival dedicated to him; his love affairs, meanwhile, are said to have cost him his life in 1682. A dive into the eventful life (to say the least) of one of the seventeenth century’s most celebrated artists. The festival dedicated to him will take place from 29 August to 27 September in Viterbo and Nepi, Italy. 
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The singer and composer Alessandro Stradella (1643–1682) is known to music lovers today through three main avenues. First—and in the best of cases—through his work, which is as prolific as it is diverse. Second, through the various operas and other vocal works that, from the nineteenth century to the present day, have taken his colourful life as their subject, at the hands of composers such as Friedrich von Flotow in 1837, César Franck in 1841, and Salvatore Sciarrino in 2017. Finally, through the Italian musician and musicologist Andrea De Carlo, who founded the Festival Barocco Alessandro Stradella in Viterbo and Nepi, Italy, fifteen years ago, and then, in 2013, launched the Stradella Project, a recording series released by Arcana/Outhere, through which he has been bringing the composer’s music to wider audiences with his ensemble Mare Nostrum. Total Baroque Magazine met Andrea De Carlo, who is undoubtedly Stradella’s most passionate advocate today, to discuss the composer and the principal discoveries made surrounding his music in recent years.
An Affair with Fatal Consequences
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