He was a musical genius who'd be dead before most people start their careers. Pergolesi composed his masterpiece "Stabat Mater" while literally dying of tuberculosis, creating haunting sacred music from his sickbed that would influence composers for generations. And he was just 26 when he died - a brief but incandescent moment in Baroque music where raw emotion and technical brilliance collided in one frail, brilliant body.
January 4, 1710
316 years ago
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