Leonardo Leo

Italy, 1712–1744

Italian composer (1694-1744) and one of the central figures of the Neapolitan school, equally at home in comic opera and church music. The Miserere for double choir of 1739 stayed in use in Naples long after his death.

MusicRoots documents 3 artists who influenced Leonardo Leo and 1 artist Leonardo Leo influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Leonardo Leo?

• Nicola Fago — Leo entered the Pieta dei Turchini as a boy and came up under Fago; nearly forty years later he took over Fago's own post there.
• Francesco Provenzale — His first teacher at the conservatory, before Fago.
• Alessandro Scarlatti — Not a teacher. Historians have shown Leo could not have studied with him and the story keeps needing correcting — but the debt in the writing is real, and Leo took over his post at the viceregal chapel when Scarlatti died in 1725.

Which artists did Leonardo Leo influence?

• Giovanni Andrea Fioroni — Fioroni was Leo's pupil, which is how a Neapolitan training ended up being handed to a violinist in Milan.