restored, and took strong measures against those with liberal or revolutionary connections. Cimarosa was imprisoned along with many of his political friends, and escaped the death sentence only through the intercession of influential admirers, including Cardinals Consalvi and Ruffo and Lady Hamilton. He was exiled from Naples, and went to Venice. He was terminally ill by this time, probably with stomach cancer, and he died on 11 January 1801, aged 51, composing until almost the end. His last opera, Artemisia was left unfinished. A rumour spread that he had been poisoned by agents of the Bourbons, but an inquest showed it to be unfounded. Works Although Cimarosa wrote a considerable quantity of instrumental and church music, he was, and remains, best known for his operas. He was famous for his facility as a composer, although he frequently reused material, as was usual in his day, and employed assistants for routine tasks such as composing recitatives. In the article on Cimarosa in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001), Jennifer E. Johnson and Gordana Lazarevich write that he rose above the mediocrity of some the librettos he set and produced music "suffused with lightness, elegance and finesse". Cimarosa avoided the rigidity of the traditional da capo aria, and wrote solo numbers consisting of more flexible divisions, with changes of tempo, metre and key to reflect the words of his librettists. Johnson and Lazarevich comment that this freedom of form conveys spontaneity and flexibility. Cimarosa's arias often speed up for the closing section, in the style of cabalettas. Providing contrast to the vocal display pieces, he often wrote quite simple arias in the manner of cavatinas. A feature of his scores is the sustained writing for concerted voices. In the words of the Grove article: Harmonically, Cimarosa was not innovative, remaining content with traditional diatonic conventions. In the view of Johnson and Lazarevich his musical strengths are to be found in "the richness of his melodic invention, the brilliance and energy of his rhythmic and melodic motifs and his constantly lively accompaniments". Cimarosa's approach to orchestration developed over his career. His earlier works are generally written for strings, oboes, horns and trumpets, and occasionally bassoons and flutes. In these pieces the function of the orchestra is to provide a discreet support for the voices. During his four years in St Petersburg he began to use clarinets, and to orchestrate more fully and