ABSTRACT
Alessandro Scarlatti the case is different, although Donald Grout in The New Grove has denied that Scarlatti influenced George Frideric Handel or anyone else. Scarlatti composed operas for Ferdinando de' Medici's theatre at Pratolino in five successive years — the last of them, Il gran Tamerlano, in September 1706, just about the time when Handel, on Ferdinando's invitation, probably reached the Florentine court from Hamburg. This may have been the first opera Handel heard in Italy, though there is no evidence that Scarlatti conducted it in person. An urge to transcend routine lies at the heart of his best work and Scarlatti's. While many of the composers he encountered in Italy could — and doubtless did — instruct Handel in the technique of the aria and the opera, only Scarlatti commanded the extra ration of genius capable of stretching his imagination and inspiring him to explore uncharted territory.
