Expelled from the precincts of opera seria, especially by the librettos of Apostolo Zeno and Metastasio, the comic spirit had taken refuge in such an expanded intermezzo as La serva padrona (1733; The Maid Mistress), by the Neapolitan composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
The medieval period was widely viewed as an insignificant intermezzo between Greco-Roman antiquity and modern times, and Scholasticism was normally taken to describe a philosophy busied with sterile subtleties, written in bad Latin, and above all subservient to Roman Catholic theology.
Besides the suite and opera overture, the short humorous intermezzo, which originated in Naples and flourished about 1685 1750, strongly influenced pre-Classical symphonists.
Neapolitan composers, headed by Alessandro Scarlatti, concerned themselves in the intermezzo with dramatic, comic interplay between two singers in two or three short acts made up of arias, recitatives, and duets.
The suite consists of musical depictions of 10 paintings by Hartmann, interspersed with a recurring "Promenade" theme, or intermezzo, that represents a visitor in this case, the composer himself strolling through the exhibition.
In 1589 the sophisticated Florentine court produced an intermezzo called Harmony of the Spheres, a spectacular type of masque that incorporated music; it was the immediate forerunner of opera.
The 10 selections that make up the suite are the "Prologue," "Galop," "March," "Waltz," "Pantomime," "Intermezzo," "Little Lyrical Scene,""Gavotte," "Scherzo," and "Epilogue".
In the 19th century, "intermezzo" was often used as a title for light instrumental pieces, such as the piano intermezzi composed by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms.
The folksy and cheerful quality of the seventh movement, "The Market at Limoges," is neutralized by the eighth, "The Catacombs," which casts an eerie shadow with ominous chords and variations on the recurring intermezzo.
In Italy, opera evolved within the framework of the intermezzo.
Ṭoghrıl Beg, the Seljuq sultan, entered Baghdad in 1055, and Būyid power was terminated, thus ending what Vladimir Minorsky, the great Iranologist, called the "Iranian intermezzo".
