He was born in Frattamaggiore, in the Kingdom of Naples, and entered the Conservatory as a child of the poor of Jesus Christ, in Naples, where he received lessons from Gaetano Greek. Later he became a pupil of Alessandro Scarlatti at the Conservatory of St. Onofrio to Porta Capuana. It is also supposed to have studied with Bernardo Pasquini and Giuseppe Ottavio Pythons in Rome, but there is no documentation about it. It seems, however, it succeeded Scarlatti in 1725 in St. Onofrio, and there remained until 1742 when he replaced the head of Nicola Porpora at the Conservatorio di Santa Maria di Loreto, also in Naples. He held this position for thirty years, until morì.Egli married three times.
His reputation as a teacher was considerable, among others, Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, Nicholas Jommelli, Giovanni Paisiello, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Niccolò Piccinni, Antonio Sacchini, and Traetta were his students. In his lectures, demanded a rigid observance of rules, ranking it at odds with Scarlatti, who treated his pupils as unique individuals. A complete collection of works by Durante, composed almost entirely of sacred music, was presented by Selvaggi, a Neapolitan art collector, to the Library of Paris. A catalog can be found in the Biographie universelle of Fetis. The Imperial Library of Vienna houses a valuable collection of manuscripts of Durante. Two requiems, several masses (one of which, largely original work, is the Pastoral Mass for four voices) and the Lamentations of Jeremiah are among his major works.
During that has never made anything for the theater (except for a chorus of tragedy, Flavio Valente) gave him fame as a composer of sacred music. In fact it was one of the best composers of church music of his time, although it is considered inferior to Leonardo Leo Alessandro Scarlatti: for example, it was considered one of the greatest Italian harmonists by the German composer Johann Adolph Hasse, title latter refused to recognize a While.
Is said to have started the genre of opera in Naples, a genre that combines well with his personality: culturally weak, but I sincerely devout.
