Pergolesi was only 26 years old. His premature end marked the beginning of a cult status as one that was actually not used in the 18th century. Especially Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona tweeakter comic was very popular. In Paris this comedy put a bomb under the old and subsidized opera culture of Lully and Rameau. No less successful was the Stabat Mater for soprano and alto, which would become the
… most reprinted works of the 18th century. Everyone has heard the opening of this work, with his equally poignant and sophisticated game of consonances and dissonances. No less than Bach made an edit of the Stabat Mater, entitled Tilge, Höchester, meine Sünden (BWV.1083). (HJ)more
