Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: His Life and Music.(Review)

Francesco Bartolomeo Conti: His Life and Music. By Hermine Weigel Williams. Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate 1999. [xiv, 281 p. ISBN 1-85928-388-8. $79.95.]

Even after several decades--the jacket note refers to Hermine Weigel Williams's "more than thirty years of research"--this book still betrays to some extent its origins as a dissertation (Columbia University, 1964). But it has been enhanced in many respects and brought up to date, taking in and sometimes arguing with recent research findings such as those of Rein-hard Strohm ("Scarlattiana at Yale," in Handel e gli Scarlatti a Roma: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi (Roma, 12-14 giugno 1985), ed. Nino Pirrotta and Agostino Ziino [Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1987], 113-52). With regard to the discussion of the music, the focus in Williams's dissertation on the operas of Francesco Bartolomeo Conti has been widened to include all the main genres of his works. The result is an authoritative synthesis of…