Giovanni Battista Pergolesi and Gaspare Spontini were born only a few kilometres away from each other. Pergolesi in Jesi in 1710 and Spontini in Maiolati in 1774. Their early artistic education was the same for both composers. Both Studied at Conservatoire of Naples which was the musical capital of the 1700’s.
Pergolesi became famous worldwide only after his untimely death (He died in Pozzuoli in 1736, at only 26 year old) and was acclaimed as the master of ‘opera buffa’ in Paris in the ‘Enlightenment period’. Some of his works were so popular during this time that they were even imitated and claimed as the work of musical fakers all over Europe.
Spontini was a renowned genius of his times and was warmly received in the capital cities and European courts as 'the emperor of music' .He became the musical idol of Paris and Prussian Berlin in the period of Napoleon and The Restoration.
Success in Naples lead the music of Pergolesi and Spontini to the European capitals such as Paris where ‘La Serva Padrona’ of Pergolesi provoked the quarrels of the ‘bouffons’ and where Spontini in a short time became Empress Joséphine’s favourite composer. In Berlin where Spontini for twenty years was the ‘General Musik Director’ for the King of Prussia Federico Guglielmo III , and like Rome, where Pergolesi wrote his L’Olimpiade and Messa In Fa maggiore and where Spontini debuted with his first opera, such as Vienna, where Metastasio spread fame of Pergolesi, or Copenhagen where for his Danish premiere of Vestale, Spontini was honored with Order of the Elephant, and lot of others like : Halle, Brussels, Colony, Dresda where their music was always acclaimed with big success.
Pergolesi’s music has influenced works of Bach and Rousseau besides, the myth of the prematurely death has inspired lot of musicians and poets of romanticism.