Pietro Antonio Locatelli and the Violin Bravura Tradition, edited by Fulvia Morabito, Turnhout, Brepols, 2015 (Studies on Italian Music History, 9)
This article focuses on the dissemination of Italian instrumental music in mid-eighteenth century... more This article focuses on the dissemination of Italian instrumental music in mid-eighteenth century France, with particular emphasis on performances of Italian violinists at the Concert Spirituel. With the help of contemporary journal articles, writings, catalogues and music editions, this essay wants to contribute to a better understanding of the web of interactions between Italian music and French cultural milieu in the mid-eighteenth century. Italian musicians were a constant presence at the Concert Spirituel venues and this had consequences on the growing number of editions of Italian repertoire —especially violin sonatas and concertos— issued by French publishers. Indeed, we can hypothesize a direct link between the success of a violinist-composer or the performance of music by an Italian master at the Concert Spirituel and the printing of this same music by publishers like Leclerc, Boivin, Maupetit, Hue. Moreover, the French virtuosos who had studied in Italy or with Italian masters contributed to the spread of the Italian style. This new style involved brilliance and rapidity of passages in the allegros, expressiveness and rich ornamentation in the adagios, agility in the use of the bow, the improvisation of cadenzas, the use of double stops and of natural harmonics. Many violinists-composers from Piedmont, students of Giovanni Battista Somis, performed in Paris and some of them settled in France becoming French citizens, as in the case of Pietro Ghignone. Others, members of the Tartini school like Jean-Pierre Pagin, were also involved in the controversy between supporters and detractors of Italian music, which resulted in the querelle des bouffons, as witnessed by the series of pamphlets issued in response to Grimm’s Lettre sur Omphale in 1752. In general Italian cantabile in sonatas and concertos was regarded by the philosophes as a way to enhance the meaningfulness of instrumental music, otherwise unable to communicate in the same manner as vocal music due to the lack of any link with language; in particular, Tartini’s style was seen as embodying the Enlightenment ideals of naturalness and communication of human feelings. Despite French nationalistic tendencies, the wide circulation of musicians and the spreading of their music through print were to transform deeply the French musical scene and create a common musical language; the inclusion of many violin sonatas by mid-eighteenth century Italian composers in Cartier’s L’art du violon in 1798 —intended for the violin pupils of the newly founded Conservatoire de musique— testifies to the long lasting influence of the Italian violin school.
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Harvey’s compositional language and the use of new
technologies interact with extra-musical motivations,
essentially tied with a search for transcendence. The analysis
will focus on some of Harvey’s instrumental works with or
without electronics (Flight Elegy, Tombeau de Messiaen, Run
Before Lightning, String Quartet no. 4), in order to answer the
question: can the interaction of musical structures with
spiritual, religious or oneiric references realize a sort of
narrative in music? The multiplicity of musical processes in
act — spectral approach, symmetric harmonic fields, melodic
variation, electronics — is functional to building a path to
transcendence through the alternation of moments of high
vitality with moments of ecstatic meditation, where the
contrasting elements and musical objects eventually melt and
finally loose their individuality. It is possible to synthetize this
process as a progression from dualism to the dissolution of it
in emptiness (according to the meaning that this word
assumes in Buddhism).
Harvey’s compositional language and the use of new
technologies interact with extra-musical motivations,
essentially tied with a search for transcendence. The analysis
will focus on some of Harvey’s instrumental works with or
without electronics (Flight Elegy, Tombeau de Messiaen, Run
Before Lightning, String Quartet no. 4), in order to answer the
question: can the interaction of musical structures with
spiritual, religious or oneiric references realize a sort of
narrative in music? The multiplicity of musical processes in
act — spectral approach, symmetric harmonic fields, melodic
variation, electronics — is functional to building a path to
transcendence through the alternation of moments of high
vitality with moments of ecstatic meditation, where the
contrasting elements and musical objects eventually melt and
finally loose their individuality. It is possible to synthetize this
process as a progression from dualism to the dissolution of it
in emptiness (according to the meaning that this word
assumes in Buddhism).
The rhizome in Donatoni’s poetics contributes to define form not as the application of a pre-existing model, but as a process of continuous transformation of the material. To these concepts Donatoni associates that of fragment: for him all musical work is made of fragments (at a macroscopic level, the panels, at a microscopic level, the intervals). A work is in turn only a fragment of an author’s total opus, an opus that cannot aspire to totality. A rhizomatic approach is realized in the process of quotation that characterizes many of Donatoni’s works. Since the beginnings of his career, Donatoni builds up a piece by using formalized material from a previous composition as a point of departure. In his late works quoted fragments often come from his own compositions. This article examines some works of 1980s, Alamari (1983), Tema (1981), Still (1985). These show different modes of quotation. That no pre-compositional materials have been preserved for Donatoni’s late works makes the analysis of intertextual procedures enormously useful in order to better understand the genesis and processes of these works.
This article examines the characteristics of the Turin organ tablatures and the way of transmission of Gabrieli’s toccatas, in order to propose a reconsideration of their exclusion. While the attributions given in the indices are not reliable because they were added at a much later date in the eighteenth century, on the contrary those given by the original scribe are reliable and have only rarely been contradicted by other evidence. The absence of Gabrieli’s name in the titles of the toccatas following the first two works reflects the copyist’s normal approach in the case of groups of works by the same composer. Moreover, due to the small number of compositions in free style whose attribution to Gabrieli is without question (a toccata published in Diruta’s Il Transilvano and eleven short intonations preserved in the Intonationi d’organo of 1593), a stylistic evaluation of the Turin toccatas only through a comparison with these works seems particularly problematic.
The article proposes an analysis of the toccatas in question through the comparison with other pieces by Gabrieli, both vocal and instrumental, like those published in the Canzoni et sonate (1615), the Sacrae Symphoniae (1597) and the Symphoniae sacrae (1615): indeed, some of the Turin toccatas reveal strong similarities with late works by Gabrieli. Through both a philological and an analytical approach, the article proposes adding the Turin toccatas to the corpus of Gabrieli’s authentic works.
Based on an array of primary sources, my paper examines the difficulties created by the church hierarchy to female participation in public performances, but also the multiplicity of occasions in which women could have an active role in private or semi-private contexts.
My paper will focus on the important role women had in the early seventeenth century in spreading the seconda prattica and the new monodic style. In the first half of the century Rome was a leading centre for musical training and most important female opera singers came from the papal city. Between women who lived in Rome or had links with this city we can cite Vittoria Archilei, Ippolita Recupito, Francesca Caccini, Francesca Campana, Eleonora Baroni, who were singers, instrumentalists and composers, even if only works by Caccini and Campana have been preserved. In the second part of the century Christina of Sweden’s cultural politics, together with a multicentric aristocratic patronage, gave further impulse to musical exhibitions by women and the first Tordinona seasons saw an unprecedented female participation in public opera performances.
While numerous scholars have studied music production and consumption in seventeenth-century Rome, women’s role in this context has hitherto been underestimated. This paper proposes a first attempt to a global understanding of female contribution to musical creation and performance in early-modern Rome.
Concerto and sonata genres of the Classical period reflect some characteristics of Tartini’s compositional strategies and aesthetic thought. The latter involves a theory of affects strictly linked with the art of ornamentation.
Following the same process of transformation which opera undergoes in the late eighteenth century, from being a stylized representation of abstract and universal feelings to becoming a vehicle for concrete and real passions, instrumental music begins to express unique passions and feelings, in a way that «every melody should have its sole and particular ways of expression» - to use Tartini’s words -.
In this paper I argue that some characteristics of his musical language will form part of a common European cultural horizon.
Sometimes the process is explicit and these objets trouvés are given a sort of narrative and dramatic dimension in works such as Sinfonia, Folk songs, Voci, Naturale. Sicilian melodies in Voci and Naturale bring with them elements of the culture they come from, including performance practices, so they let us experience a true contact with that world, even if mediated and not at all disinterested – to use Berio’s words –.
In particular in Voci the coming of the Sicilian popular world to the fore contributes to the organization of the instrumental groups in the scenic space and articulate the interaction between orchestral groups, soloist and percussions: the instruments answer to the soloist that plays the popular melodies in ways recalling the relationship between soloist and choir in popular cultures.
In other cases the omnivorous Berio does not insert elements or materials but compositional devices, as is the case of the eterophonic procedures inspired from the Banda Linda of Central Africa that Berio adopts in Coro.
External elements can also derive from Berio’s own compositions: the auto-quotation is a common procedure in Berio’s music, it creates a web of links between different compositions instauring a process of mutual references whose semantic implications are always susceptible to multiplication and amplification: these links can be traced between Voci, Sequenza VI for alto and Sequenza VIII for violin, but also between Coro and the same Sequenza VIII. Materials coming from other works can be inserted in a ‘disguised’ manner in a new piece and contribute to its formal articulation, determining the choise of pitches or generating axial sounds around which the musical material grows: the chronological proximity of two works or the presence of the same instruments in different works can act as a catalyst of the proliferation of textual elements beyond the borders af a given composition.
Beside the auto-quotation we must recall that process of commentary that Berio realizes in his Chemins: here the text of the Sequenze is reverberated in an instrumental group that contributes to the amplification of the internal functions, acting also as a deforming mirror.
Memory acts in two ways, in the act of creation through associations perhaps not always totally conscious and during the perception allowing the listener to grasp the links and similarities: the quotational element is detected as ‘other’ but at the same time as structural; the memory of his re-emergencies in the text allows us to perceive/understand the structural articulations in a given composition and to build a web of the possible meanings.
In the present paper I will explain these concepts through examples taken from Sequenza VIII, Corale, Voci and Coro."
The ricercars composed by the Hasslers and Erbach clearly show the influence of those of Claudio Merulo and the two Gabrielis; these tend to be quite long and contain well-defined sections, passage-work in two voices set against full-voice texture and frequently make use of a double subject. Moreover they inherit from the Venetian canzonas the use of parallel thirds and sixths and the insertion of brief motifs treated in imitation. With regard to the toccata, German composers often adopt a structure in three parts with a substantial central contrapuntal section; these compositions also show Sweelinck’s influence, particularly in their use of sections based on sequences, repeated motifs, echo-technique and triadic-based figurations.
By introducing external elements into the classical Venetian genres, the South German composers opened the way for new expressive and formal possibilities.
The conference has aimed to explore the relation between music and space in its aesthetic, historical, technical and technological dimensions, according to the following lines of research: space as an essential element of musical creation; the relation between music and architecture; the creation of virtual reality and the simulation of space through sound; the spatial dimension in performance practice; the use of technology in order to build sound space.
There is a deep connection between Harvey’s idea of music as a path to emptiness and to a pure land (as Buddhist concepts) through detachment from body and suffering, and the concept of ambiguity in music. The latter is achieved through the melting of spectral approach, serial writing and new technologies. Therefore, in Harvey’s music the coexistence of post-Webern serialism and of spectralism is justified by the idea of ambiguity as a thread to a spiritual music.
An ever changing and evolving sound, the difficulty for the listener to recognize sound origin (is it a string sound, a voice sound, or an electronic sound?), the halo that results from the creation of a spectral environment for a monodic line, all are aspects of ambiguity in music as a spiritual goal.
This paper will provide some examples taken from the following works: Tombeau de Messiaen for piano and prerecorded electronics (1994) – which explores the ambiguity between identity and duality –, the Fourth String Quartet with real-time electronics (2003) – which explores sound spatialization, in other words moving sound, as a spiritual journey – and Speakings for orchestra and real-time electronics (2007/2008) – which aims at erasing the borders between musical sound and speech sound –.
There is a deep connection between Harvey’s idea of music as a path to emptiness and to a pure land (as Buddhist concepts) through detachment from body and suffering, and the concept of ambiguity in music. The latter is achieved through the melting of spectral approach, serial writing and new technologies. Therefore, in Harvey’s music the coexistence of post-Webern serialism and of spectralism is justified by the idea of ambiguity as a thread to a spiritual music.
An ever changing and evolving sound, the difficulty for the listener to recognize sound origin (is it a string sound, a voice sound, or an electronic sound?), the halo that results from the creation of a spectral environment for a monodic line, all are aspects of ambiguity in music as a spiritual goal.
This paper will provide some examples taken from the following works: Tombeau de Messiaen for piano and prerecorded electronics (1994) – which explores the ambiguity between identity and duality –, the Fourth String Quartet with real-time electronics (2003) – which explores sound spatialization, in other words moving sound, as a spiritual journey – and Speakings for orchestra and real-time electronics (2007/2008) – which aims at erasing the borders between musical sound and speech sound –.
"Ricercari" a tema libero;
"Variazioni" sul tema «Musica, tra giovinezza e senilità».
The new call for papers 2016 of the journal «Gli spazi della musica»:
"Ricercari", free papers;
"Variazioni" on the theme «Music between youth and senility».