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Flute Concertos by Carl Philipp E. Bach
The Prussian king Frederick II’s favorite daily pastime was making music on the traverse flute (as was brought to life by Adolph von Menzel en his “Flute Recital in Sanssouci”), and this had important music historical consequences. Because of the king’s avocation, Berlin in the 18th century was an exceedingly fertile ground for both performers and composers of flute music. The monarch himself composed some 121 sonatas for flute and harpsichord and four flute concertos. His teacher and court composer Johann Joachim Quantz was even more prolific, writing approximately 300 concertos and 200 sonatas for the instrument. (Quantz is also the author of the basic instruction work “Versuch einer Anweisung, die Flöte traversiere zu spielen” – “A Trial Instruction Work on How to Play the Traverse Flute”). Other composing members of the Berlin Court Orchestra also wrote music for flute, among them Carl Heinrich and Johann Gottlieb Graun, Frederick Wilhelm Riedt, Christoph Nichelmann and – Carl Philipp Emanuel bach.
The Flute Concerto in D minor (Wq 22/H 426) presents problems of authentication. It exists in this version only as handwritten copy in Princess Anna Amalia’s Library (Am. Bib. 101; a later copy made in the 19th century, P 768, is of secondary importance). Since only its counterpart, the Harpsichord Concerto in D minor (Wq 22/H 425) is included in the 1790 catalogue of works in Bach’s estate, it can be assumed that the version for solo flute is an adaptation by someone else. On the other hand, the fact that Bach maintained close contact with Anna Amalia is documented by many sources; when he left Berlin for Hamburg she appointed him her court conductor. We therefore cannot exclude the possibility that Bach authorized the flute version of Wq 22. It might have originated in or after the year 1747, when the harpsichord concerto was written.
The work begins with a nearly symphonic verve and a persistent, forward-looking drive. Bach’s emphasis on solo concertizing is striking. In extended solo passages the flute part is dominated by a virtuosity which at times has its own sensitive quality. Here the range of tones between d1 and e3 is traversed with apparent effortlessness. And Bach’s harmonic constellations are astonishlingly original: in the midst of the second solo he chooses, in rapid succession, the keys E-F-B-flat – d-E-a.
A calm and mowing songlike section, rendered sensitive by the cautions arsis and thesis of its melodic line, is sounded by Bach in the Andante. In this he respects the contemporary aesthetic precept: “The stronger and more stirring… such a slow movement of a concerto is, the greater effect it will have”. In order to lend the Andante “greater effect”, recitative-like sections are included which surprise by deviating from the regular flow of the music. This is a hallmark of Bach’s personal style and not, as is often maintained, an invention of Beethoven.
To categorize this master’s music as “gallant” is singularly inappropriate, as is evident in the Finale. One is captivated by passages cascading down two and half octaves, “exploding” motivic elements and powerfully ascending scales – in a breathtaking and feverish, even delirious tempo. This is the “new gusto” of the post-Bach generation, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was the composer who, with greatest consistency, liberated music from the frivolous rococo style.
The opening ritornello of the Concerto in A minor (WQ 166/H 431; perhaps composed in 1750) has a unique, “Baroque” character, with seemingly stereotypical triadic arpeggious running in unchanging rhythms, a striking tendency towards sequential formations and the unusual 3/2 time signature. The importance of this section of the movement reveals itself when the first solo passage is heard. This solo is thematically completely different. It confronts the motoric motion of the tutti with sensitive, cantabile qualities. The state of tension thus created provides impetus for the further course of the movement. Here the flute picks up neither the sharp contours of the tutti main theme nor its excitedly fluttering sixteenth note motifs. Instead, it is continually under attack by both.
Beginning with a singing quality, the Andante develops to the sweeping song of the solo instrument. In the wide swings and rich ornamentation of the melodic arcs, the lyrical aural effect of the flute and its well-carried, pliable and warm tone are fully expressed. It would noty be an exageratio to say that the gesture of this music live on in the ideal of musical beauty found in an Andante by Mozart or Haydn.
In the early classical concerto, the final movement generally presents the most trying compositional problems. The cheerful final is usually a place where the memory of the opposing forces presented in the opening movement dissipates and the emotions stirred up in the slow movements are brought to rest. This can lead to a lost intensity of expression and to a dearth of tension; in fact, the expressiveness of many a final movement unravels in passages of mechanical figuration. Bach meets this danger by presenting a pointedly clever selection of themes and by developing them skillfully and effectively. The capricious main theme (which Bach brings to original life as a series of cadences) is based on the structural principle of addition. This makes it possible to apportion the individual motivic segments between the tutti and solo sections. The main motif provides the motivating impulse and, becoming in part self-sufficient, creates ever new connections.
The new printing of the Concerto in A major (Wq 168/H 438 – perhaps composed in 1753) was commissioned by the Eulenburg Publishing House and is based on handwritten instrumental part material preserved in the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire Royal de Musique in Brussels. The library also has in its possession the harpsichord and cello voice parts of this concerto. Comparisons can thus be made between the various solo parts, yielding interesting information. For example, at those points where the cello performs lively sixteenth-note figures, the same passage is hard in the flute voice as an “expressive”. As he did in the A minor Concerto, Bach creates a major contrast here between the tutti and solo sections. The main theme has a something of flightly, restless character. No more than three measures of the opening ritornello are held in piano or pianissimo. The solo instrument begins with the dactylic figure from the beginning but soon goes its own way, recalling its lyrical qualities. Along with brilliant virtuosity, the second solo brings harmonic expansion (from A major to G-sharp major and back again). This is an instrumental movement which never comes to rest. But in expressing a single emotion in its totality, it attains that high degree of artistic conviction which is based on the ideal that music should be the composer’s most personal expression.
The Largo com sordini, mesto begins with a melodic figure typical of Bach’s compositional technique: an ascending minor third and descending minor seconds. This figure, borrowed from the stylistic reservoir of musical “Empfindsamkeit” (sensitivity), finds its vocal counterpart in Bach’s songs. In “Nonnenlied” (The Nun’s Song – Es ist kei derdiblich Leben) it appears in Verse 5 at the words “o Liebe” (O Love). The semantic environment of this part of the text is directed towards the arousal of lament, sympathy and tears. Such an interpretation of content is both accurate and appropriate for the slow movement of the flute concerto as well. The selection of a minor key, the specification “Sordino”, the course of the melody, which is strangely devoid of development and has an introspective tendency (this both on the small scale, in the core motif, and on the large scale, the concluding phrase conducted in a strict unison – all of this lends the movement a hopeless, painful, stirring air. The word “rühren” (to stir), as it was used in those days, is no to equated with “rührselig” (sentimental, maudlin) in its modern, prejorative meaning. Bach’s statement according to which “a musician cannot stir unless he himself is stirred [or moved] (“Indem eni Musickus nicht anders rühren kan, er sey dann selbst gerührt”) is to be understood using the literal meaning of the word. As such, it refers to the genuine capacity for feeling and its unfalsified expression.
The opening ritornello of the Allegro assai lives from its tension-filled opposition between unfettered triplet motifs pulsating throughout the entire spectrum of voices and restful melodic lines carried out in two voices. However, before the latter have a chance to develop, they are attacked by powerful, pulsating chordal figures. With this, the initial mood predominates again. The solo instrument proceeds, as it were, in the opposite direction: it begins with a cantabile theme. But, driven on by the triplet escapades of the tutti in the second and third solo sections, it is drawn more and more into the latter’s realm of expression.
Hans-Günter Ottenberg
(1985)
Franz Süssmayr's Clarinet Concerto
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was born in Schwanenstadt, Upper Austria, in 1766 and died in Vienna in 1803. Today he is remembered mainly for his completion of Mozart’s Requiem. However, he was a successful composer in his own right whose operas, in particular, enjoyed popularity. His early life was spent at the monastery school in Kremsmünster where he performed as a singer, violinist and organist and began to compose. In July 1788 he settled in Vienna, becoming a pupil and friend of Mozart during the last year or two of Mozart’s life. It is surely no coincidence that the son born to Mozart in July 1791 was christened Franz Xaver, though it is going a bit far to suggest, as some have done, that this is evidence of a particularly intimate friendship between Süssmayr and Mozart’s wife Constanze.
The autograph of Süssmayr’s Clarinet Concerto lies in The British Library, London. The solo part is written for an instrument in A extending down to bottom C, nowadays called the basset clarinet. It was developed by Anton Stadler in the late 1780s but survived for only a few years. Though Mozart wrote his Concerto and Quintet for this instrument, they were published in adaptations for the normal-compass clarinet. Mozart’s autographs have not survived, and the versions for the basset clarinet heard today are modern reconstructions. An authentic example of the instrument’s use by Mozart’s contemporary, Süssmayr, is therefore of especial historical interest.
To be exact, Süssmayr’s Concerto exists in two autographs, one an undated sketch and the other a draft, dated ‘Vienna … January 1792’. Both are incomplete, though Süssmayr obviously expected to finish the draft and fill in the date of completion within the month. They are to be found in a volume of manuscripts of Süssmayr’s works. The volume is noteworthy because it also contains a Mozart autograph – the final pages of the Rondo in A for piano and orchestra, K386 – miscatalogued under Süssmayr’s name until discovered by Alan Tyson in 1980. In his book Mozart, Studies of the Autograph Scores (p262) Tyson writes: ‘The contents of the volume, Add. MS32181, formed part of a large collection of manuscripts by various composers that had been purchased by the British Library (then the British Museum) on 9 February 1884 from the Leipzig antiquarian firm of List and Francke. These manuscripts, catalogued as Add. MS32169–32239, were said to have come from the library of Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837) …’
On 6 September 1791 Mozart, Stadler and Süssmayr were in Prague for the premiere of La Clemenza di Tito. Stadler played the obbligato parts and Süssmayr, according to the Mozart biography by Georg Nikolaus Nissen, Constanze’s second husband, assisted the hard-pressed Mozart by writing the secco recitatives. There can be little doubt that Süssmayr began to compose his Concerto in Prague, for his earlier sketch was written, to quote Tyson again, ‘on Bohemian paper identical in watermark (though ruled with a slightly different 2-staff rastrum) to that used by Mozart in completing La Clemenza di Tito at Prague in September 1791 – probably Süssmayr’s Concerto was started at that time’ (ibid., p253).
Mozart’s Concerto was completed on his return to Vienna; in a letter to his wife of 7/8 October 1791 he reported that he had just orchestrated almost the whole of the Rondo. A few paragraphs later he writes: ‘Do urge Süssmayr to write something for Stadler, for he has begged me very earnestly to see to this.’ That is how it is translated in The Letters of Mozart and his Family (volume III, p1438), published in 1938 by Emily Anderson. But in the original letter the names have been crossed out, probably by Nissen, for reasons best known to himself. What remains visible reads ‘treibe den … dass er für … schreibt, denn er hat mich sehr darum gebeten’. From the context of the letter Emily Anderson’s interpretation is probably correct.
Despite the encouragement Süssmayr’s Concerto remained but an unfinished sketch. In the meantime Mozart’s own Concerto was given in Prague on 16 October 1791, with Stadler as soloist. A month after Mozart’s death Süssmayr took up his own Concerto again, but something interrupted him. Possibly it was the call from Constanze to complete the unfinished score of Mozart’s Requiem. In any case Stadler had by now embarked on a long tour which kept him away from Vienna until 1796. It would not be hard to imagine that Süssmayr’s enthusiasm faded and he simply lost interest in completing the work.
The musical material of the two autographs is almost sufficient, however, for the construction of a first movement. The earlier sketch extends well into the development section in the solo clarinet part. But the orchestration is essentially complete only as far as the second subject in the soloist’s exposition, at which point it becomes very fragmentary. The subsequent draft, however, is fully orchestrated for strings, two oboes and two horns, but it breaks off altogether at the beginning of the development. It contains alterations to the exposition, some of which are also found squeezed onto spare staves of the sketched version.
To complete the movement it was necessary first to fill out the orchestral part of the development section in accordance with Süssmayr’s sketched suggestions, and then to link it to a recapitulation constructed from Süssmayr’s exposition material – a far more modest challenge than his own completion of Mozart’s Requiem. If Süssmayr had continued with the later draft it might well have contained alterations to the development section, following the pattern of the exposition. Nevertheless it seemed a better principle to use what Süssmayr actually sketched rather than to guess at what he might have written.
The movement opens in the grand manner, leading, however, to gentler and subtler moods. The clarinet writing explores both the lyricism and agility of the instrument, making full use of the low compass, supported by varied and imaginative orchestral textures. It would be unfair to compare Süssmayr’s Concerto with his teacher’s. Süssmayr demonstrates, to his credit, that he is his own man, and occasional technical clumsiness, evident here as in his completion of Mozart’s Requiem, may be regarded as a distinctive feature of his music.
The completion of an unfinished work is bound to arouse misgivings but, since Süssmayr himself showed the way, one might say that he deserves it! After a gestation period of two hundred years it would be time even for a white elephant to be born – how much more a Concerto which has freshness, vitality and charm.
Michael Freyhan
The Bachs
The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was one of the most horrible conflicts
in European history. During that period, what is now Germany was the
sinister backdrop for battle and troop movements; cities and countryside
were ravaged and burned. Sickness, epidemics and famine only completed
the work begun by military and civilian massacres and certain cities
lost half, or even three quarters of their population. All of this
dictated by vain political aspirations brandishing the standard of
religion for protection! It is in Thuringia, a region that was
particularly touched by this war, that we find the origins of that
family of musicians, the Bachs. In his list of the members of a
veritable “tribe”, Johann Sebastian Bach mentioned the existence of Veit
Bach, a baker ( ? -1619), who accompanied his mill’s motion by playing
his cittern. Music seems, in sometimes different ways, to have had an
important place in the life of these Bach’s. Veit’s son, Johannes, had
three musician sons: Johann, Christoph, and Heinrich.
Johann Bach (1604-1673)
This Johannes is the first Bach composer whose works have come down to us. He was born in the town of Wechmar and learnded the rudiments of music from J. C. Hoffmann, piper of the town of Suhl. In those difficult times, he had to wait a long time before finding a stable position. At last in 1635, he was engaged as instrumentalist in the municipal orchestra of Erfurt. The role of these musicians was very important; at certain hours (morning, noon and evening), they played chorales, but they also had to sound alarms. When they played in church, they exchanged their wind instruments for strings. In addition, as from 1636, Johann Bach was also organist of the Predigerkirche.
Johann Michäel Bach (1648-1694)
The two following composers are the sons of the above-mentioned brother Heinrich, organist in Arnstadt. They belonged to the generation that had to recover from the thirty years of war. Johann Michäel Bach was organist in Arnstadt until 1673, the in Gehren. In addition to his much-noticed gifts as organist, he was an instrument maker. When he died in 1704, he left five daughters, one of whom was Maria Barbara, who was to become Johann Sebastian Bach’s first wife.
Johann Cristoph Bach (1642-1703)
Johann Christoph Bach, born in 1642, was organist of Eisenach. His entire career as a brilliant instrumentalist was troubled by endless financial difficulties and interminable discussions with the municipal and religious authorities in order to obtain decent living conditions. In his genealogy of the Bach family, Johann Sebastian describes him as a “profound” composer. The works that have been preserved bear strong witness to this view.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
A grandson of Christoph Bach, Johann Sebastian was orphaned when he was ten years old, and it was his brother (another Johann Christoph) who taught him the rudiments of music after his father Johann Ambrosius’ death. After having been singer in Lünebourg he became organist at Arnstadt and then at Mulhausen before becoming a musician in the service first of the Duke of Weimar and then of the Prince of Cöthen, and finally becoming Cantor in Leipzig.
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784)
Repeated incidents in the life of Wilhelm Friedemann bach, the eldest son of Johann Sebastian, give evidence of an unstable personality, one whose unhappy end was to be that of an alcoholic. Completely unlike his younger brother, he was never able to hold down fixed employment; his instability forced him to change his place of employment several times, resulting in his acceptance of post in Dresden, Halle, Darmstadt, Brunswick and finally Berlin.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
The second son of Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel began his career as Harpsichordist to Frederick II, King of Prussia. He then succeeded his godfather Georg Philipp Telemann as head of Hamburg’s musical life. The Sonata for viola da gamba and continuo in G major belongs to the music written whilst he was in the service of the flute-playing King.
G. Ph. Telemann: Concerti
In later years, his reputation sprang national borders, and the instrumental music of Germany’s most popular composer grew in demand from musicians all over Europe. For instance, 25% of the over 200 subscribers to Telemann’s unique publication of “Musique de Table”, (consisting of orchestral suites, chamber music, and concertos), came from outside of Germany. Telemann knew how to make the most of his advantage, travelling from Hamburg to Paris in 1737 to meet French colleagues and patrons. His successful trip fulfilled a Francophile’s life-long dream, but also served the business of pleasure: he returned with a copyright covering his music, which had begun to appear in pirate editions by industrious French publishers without his permission or profit.
But such extravagant journeys to protect his work were hardly necessary. Excluding the unique edition of “Musique de Table” and an early series of overtures, the majority of the composer’s orchestral works – i.e. for professionals – were never published in his lifetime. It was more profitable for Telemann to lend out his manuscripts to be hand-copied by the various court ensembles that wanted them, as printing costs would have greatly diminished any hoped for earnings, and thieving publishers were of course not only in Paris. These copies of lost originals made for the ensembles of Darmstadt, Dresden, Berlin, and Stockholm have become Telemann’s legacy to their library collections today.
Several of Telemann’s pieces feature the Baroque flute joined by a colourful array of other instruments that are so well served in their “original” form. No modern version of the viola d’amore or oboe d’amore, like the wooden, one-keyed flauto traverse itself can really do justice to its 18th century predecessor. The chalumeau, a two-keyed, single-reed instrument resembling an alto recorder in size and appearance, sounds at least an octave lower than it looks, and has no modern counterpart at all. Only in timbre and playing technique does it approach our modern clarinet. Perhaps one of the most extraordinary pieces is the concerto in G for two contrabasses concertato, winds and strings. We know of no other concerto with this exotic combination of instruments in the entire 18th century, and it seems to be the first concerto for double bass ever composed. According to the descriptive heading of the autograph manuscript, Telemann began the piece intending to write a suite of movements in differing national styles: Italian, French, Polish, English and Scottish. Referring to this and the double bass, he gave it the title “Eccentric Symphony” (Grillen-Symphonie). But for unknown reasons, the composer crossed out this title and explanation, turned the score upside down and wrote down the present concerto. Whatever caused Telemann to reconsider his original plan, we can only be grateful for a concerto which treats the double basses as full-blooded musical partners worthy of the chalumeau, oboe, flute and violin. The only traces of the humorous “character” piece which Telemann first intended to write emerges in the scherzo-like last movement.
Concertos in the 18th century were generally written for specific musicians and ensembles, “composed to order”. The bonds Telemann forged among his fellow students of the Leipzig Collegium Musicum, (which he founded in 1701) were to some of the most talented musicians of his generation, many of whom became leading musical figures in Germany: the Darmstadt Kapellmeister Christoph Graupner, the Dresden Konzertmeister Johann Pisendel, and Johann Paul Kunzen, opera director in Hamburg. Although the exact origins of individual concerti can seldom be traced, we suppose that pieces now found in the archives of Darmstadt, Schwering and Dresden, can be associated to musicians who had contact with Telemann in those cities. Therefore, we speculate that the concerto in E minor for flute and violin could have been written for, or at least played by Kunzen, who was an excellent violinist and whose son became Kapellmeister in Schwerin. The single orchestral concerto is among 27 others from the shelves of the Dresden Hofkapelle library in the hand of Pisendel. Telemann’s close friend and correspondent for over fifty years, Pisendel played first violin and led Germany’s most famous 18th century orchestra. Likewise, one can imagine the principal players of this elite ensemble – flutist Buffardin or Quantz, oboist Besozzi and Pisendel performing the concerto for flute, oboe d’amore, and viola d’amore. Despite its name, viola d’amore was an instrument mastered by violinists in the 17th and 18th centuries, which explains the technically demanding solo part.
Few musicians then or since have enjoyed the universal admiration lavished on Telemann by his colleagues, patrons and public. His philosophy of writing for each instrument “suitably and in such a way that the player takes pleasure from practice” could well be put to use today. Shunned as facile by historians in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Telemann’s enlightened contemporaries were already able to place his achievements in a historical context. A verse by Johann Mattheson, Germany’s most significant 18th century musical journalist and lexicographer proves the point:
Lully was famous, and Corelli ever praised:
But Telemann alone is over honor raised. (1740)
Paul Lindenauer
Antonio Vivaldi’s Cello Sonatas RV 39-47
The nine Cello Sonatas of Antonio Vivaldi have established themselves as among the most popular of all Baroque works for the cello. Like so many sonatas of the period these were written down as a melody line and a bass; and though many solutions have been suggested and tried, such as the use of an organ, theorbos or a guitar, the bass is most often realized for a continuo of harpsichord and cello.
In all probability, however, these nine works are only a portion – perhaps a small portion – of the number of sonatas he actually wrote for the instrument. Vivaldi’s known output of music is very large, but no-one imagines it has all survived the ravages of time. Since he was fabulously prolific in an age of haphazard reproduction, it is entirely likely that many works have been lost. Unlike his violin sonatas, he never bothered to publish any of his Cello Sonatas himself (the six so-called ‘Paris’ sonatas seem to have appeared in print without his participation and perhaps without his knowledge), and the manuscripts containing cello sonatas that we have owe their survival to luck rather than careful preservation. None were included among the vast amount of manuscript music that Vivaldi left in Venice when he moved to Vienna, where he died; on the other hand he is also known to have sold a great many manuscripts in 1739, before he made the move.
Like most string players of his day Vivaldi, though primarily a violinist, was clearly well acquainted with the potential, character, and playing techniques of the other instruments of the string family, perhaps especially the cello, for which he wrote a large number of concertos and gave many expressive solos in other works. And as the teacher of all the string instruments at the Ospedale della Pietà, that celebrated institution for foundlings in Venice, he will have had to instruct pupils on the cello. Moreover we know some of his concertos were written for the talented cellists among the all-female orchestra of the Pietà, and he have disappeared. It is also clear that as he became better-known as a composer he received many commissions from cellists or their patrons, and it is unlikely that all the results were limited to the three manuscript collections of cello sonatas, dispersed between Paris, Naples, and Germany, that are now known.
The most important of these collections is a volume of six sonatas (numbered RV 47, 41, 43, 45, 40 and 46 in Peter Ryom’s standard catalogue of Vivaldi’s works published in 1974). This is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It is believed that this was a fair-copy made for Count Gergy, the French Ambassador in Venice, in about 1725 (it can be approximately dated by comparison with other manuscripts by the same copyist). Gergy was not himself a cellist, so he probably ordered the collection for aristocratic musician-friends in Paris. It was this manuscript that eventually served as the exemplar for the edition that appeared in Paris much later – in about 1740 – from the publisher Charles-Nicholas Le Clerc which is often (though erroneously) termed Vivaldi’s opus 14. Starting in the late 1730s, there was a sudden vogue for the cello in Paris, and Le Clerc capitalized on this enthusiasm by issuing at least 26 volumes of cello sonatas up to 1750.
Apart from the Bibliothèque Nationale collection, three sonatas (RV 39, 44, and 47) are found in a manuscript in the library of Naples Conservatoire that seems to date from the early 1730s. These are the only copies that have tempo-markings added Vivaldi’s own hand. It has been speculated that these sonatas were copied for a Count Maddaloni who was an amateur cellist; Leonardo Leo wrote six cello concertos for him, and Pergolesi a sonata. The third collection contains three sonatas (RV 42, 44 and 46) and reposes in Unterfranken, Germany, in the library of the Counts of Schönborn-Wiesentheid. It is a reasonable assumption that these were collected by the enthusiastic amateur cellist Count Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn (1677-1754) who had studied the cello in Rome in the 1690s and who also acquired several of Vivaldi’s cello concertos. The collection however appears to date from two different periods: RV 42 and 46 seem to have been acquired in about 1726, while RV 44, which was definitely copied in Rome, could have been brought to the Count by his sons, who visited that city in 1731.
For completeness’ sake, we should mention that in addition, there was a tenth Sonata – in D minor, and catalogued by Ryom as RV 38 – which was advertised in 1766 by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf, but this work is now lost: only an incipit survies. (According to legend, a manuscript was placed too close to an open fire and burned.) There is also a mysterious “Sonata da Camera” in A major which Ryom placed doubtfully in his catalogue as RV Anh. 1, but the majority opinion is that this anonymous manuscript work, posthumously attributed to Vivaldi is not in fact by him and may not even be intended to be played on a cello. Of the eleven sonatas of which we are aware, therefore, one is probably spurious and one is lost, leaving the canonic nine of which only three (RV 44, 46 and 47) are found in more than one manuscript source. Even so, scholars have theorized that certain of the sonatas (most probably RV 40, 42 and 43) were not original compositions for cello but are rather ‘pasticcios’, arranged and assembled from various other Vivaldi works.
As this account suggests, the nine extant Sonatas are in no sense a group; and even the six published by Le Clerc in Paris, though numbered I to VI in his edition, were probably not intended by Vivaldi to form a sequence. But they do all appear to date from the same general period (the 1720s), and all ten have the same form – that is to say, the four-movement, slow-fast-slow-fast design of the Baroque ‘church sonata’, the Sonata da chiesa. Nevertheless the dance-like character of many of the quicker movements (the Wiesentheid sonatas bear actual dance-designations on the movements in question, though these do not appear in the Paris manuscript and edition of RV 46) are more reminiscent of the Sonata da camera or ‘chamber sonata’, and these dance-movements are very varied in character. In these respects the cello sonatas closely resemble Vivaldi’s twelve so-called ‘Manchester’ violin sonatas, which also date from the mid-1720s. In each sonata, every movement is in binary form, with two repeated sections. The third movements are frequently contrasted with the others by being in a different key.
It is very clear, from all the sonatas, that Vivaldi was able to exploit the versatility of the cello in his writing for it. His demands on the player include string-crossing figures, wide leaps, flamboyant scale passages and broken chords. Being both a melody instrument able to carry a strong and wide-ranging line, and a ‘bass instrument that could double or ornament a bass line, the cello offered him unique opportunities for combining both functions in a single part. So he requires it to negotiate high and low registers, and the transition between them, with great mobility, and is able to suggest a quality of interior monologue in which the cello answers and responds to itself in different parts of the tonal spectrum. But over and above all this, Vivaldi seems to write for the cello with special sympathy and identification; the instrument’s low register and plangent tone give the sonatas have a gravity and expressive pathos seldom found to such an extent in his violin works.
Thus it is typically in the first and third movements of these sonatas that we lind thoughtful, contemplative and sometimes melancholic music, full of expressive nuance, almost unique in Vivaldi’s output. This aspect is especially strong in the minor-key sonatas RV 40, 42, 43 and 44, and their faster movements, though much livelier and sometimes calling for considerable bravura, seem to share the generally thoughtful mood.
In contrast to the minor-key works, a remarkable aspect of the sonatas as a group is the presence of no less than three in the key of B flat major. This is a particularly rich and mellow-toned key for the cello, and it engenders relaxed, inventive works of serene mastery. Here the fast movements tend to be dance-like, sometimes with rustic and jocular undertones, and sometimes quirky, asymmetrical phrasing, while the slow movements are calmly melodic in conception.
Malcolm MacDonald
(2007)
In all probability, however, these nine works are only a portion – perhaps a small portion – of the number of sonatas he actually wrote for the instrument. Vivaldi’s known output of music is very large, but no-one imagines it has all survived the ravages of time. Since he was fabulously prolific in an age of haphazard reproduction, it is entirely likely that many works have been lost. Unlike his violin sonatas, he never bothered to publish any of his Cello Sonatas himself (the six so-called ‘Paris’ sonatas seem to have appeared in print without his participation and perhaps without his knowledge), and the manuscripts containing cello sonatas that we have owe their survival to luck rather than careful preservation. None were included among the vast amount of manuscript music that Vivaldi left in Venice when he moved to Vienna, where he died; on the other hand he is also known to have sold a great many manuscripts in 1739, before he made the move.
Like most string players of his day Vivaldi, though primarily a violinist, was clearly well acquainted with the potential, character, and playing techniques of the other instruments of the string family, perhaps especially the cello, for which he wrote a large number of concertos and gave many expressive solos in other works. And as the teacher of all the string instruments at the Ospedale della Pietà, that celebrated institution for foundlings in Venice, he will have had to instruct pupils on the cello. Moreover we know some of his concertos were written for the talented cellists among the all-female orchestra of the Pietà, and he have disappeared. It is also clear that as he became better-known as a composer he received many commissions from cellists or their patrons, and it is unlikely that all the results were limited to the three manuscript collections of cello sonatas, dispersed between Paris, Naples, and Germany, that are now known.
The most important of these collections is a volume of six sonatas (numbered RV 47, 41, 43, 45, 40 and 46 in Peter Ryom’s standard catalogue of Vivaldi’s works published in 1974). This is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. It is believed that this was a fair-copy made for Count Gergy, the French Ambassador in Venice, in about 1725 (it can be approximately dated by comparison with other manuscripts by the same copyist). Gergy was not himself a cellist, so he probably ordered the collection for aristocratic musician-friends in Paris. It was this manuscript that eventually served as the exemplar for the edition that appeared in Paris much later – in about 1740 – from the publisher Charles-Nicholas Le Clerc which is often (though erroneously) termed Vivaldi’s opus 14. Starting in the late 1730s, there was a sudden vogue for the cello in Paris, and Le Clerc capitalized on this enthusiasm by issuing at least 26 volumes of cello sonatas up to 1750.
Apart from the Bibliothèque Nationale collection, three sonatas (RV 39, 44, and 47) are found in a manuscript in the library of Naples Conservatoire that seems to date from the early 1730s. These are the only copies that have tempo-markings added Vivaldi’s own hand. It has been speculated that these sonatas were copied for a Count Maddaloni who was an amateur cellist; Leonardo Leo wrote six cello concertos for him, and Pergolesi a sonata. The third collection contains three sonatas (RV 42, 44 and 46) and reposes in Unterfranken, Germany, in the library of the Counts of Schönborn-Wiesentheid. It is a reasonable assumption that these were collected by the enthusiastic amateur cellist Count Rudolf Franz Erwein von Schönborn (1677-1754) who had studied the cello in Rome in the 1690s and who also acquired several of Vivaldi’s cello concertos. The collection however appears to date from two different periods: RV 42 and 46 seem to have been acquired in about 1726, while RV 44, which was definitely copied in Rome, could have been brought to the Count by his sons, who visited that city in 1731.
For completeness’ sake, we should mention that in addition, there was a tenth Sonata – in D minor, and catalogued by Ryom as RV 38 – which was advertised in 1766 by the Leipzig firm of Breitkopf, but this work is now lost: only an incipit survies. (According to legend, a manuscript was placed too close to an open fire and burned.) There is also a mysterious “Sonata da Camera” in A major which Ryom placed doubtfully in his catalogue as RV Anh. 1, but the majority opinion is that this anonymous manuscript work, posthumously attributed to Vivaldi is not in fact by him and may not even be intended to be played on a cello. Of the eleven sonatas of which we are aware, therefore, one is probably spurious and one is lost, leaving the canonic nine of which only three (RV 44, 46 and 47) are found in more than one manuscript source. Even so, scholars have theorized that certain of the sonatas (most probably RV 40, 42 and 43) were not original compositions for cello but are rather ‘pasticcios’, arranged and assembled from various other Vivaldi works.
As this account suggests, the nine extant Sonatas are in no sense a group; and even the six published by Le Clerc in Paris, though numbered I to VI in his edition, were probably not intended by Vivaldi to form a sequence. But they do all appear to date from the same general period (the 1720s), and all ten have the same form – that is to say, the four-movement, slow-fast-slow-fast design of the Baroque ‘church sonata’, the Sonata da chiesa. Nevertheless the dance-like character of many of the quicker movements (the Wiesentheid sonatas bear actual dance-designations on the movements in question, though these do not appear in the Paris manuscript and edition of RV 46) are more reminiscent of the Sonata da camera or ‘chamber sonata’, and these dance-movements are very varied in character. In these respects the cello sonatas closely resemble Vivaldi’s twelve so-called ‘Manchester’ violin sonatas, which also date from the mid-1720s. In each sonata, every movement is in binary form, with two repeated sections. The third movements are frequently contrasted with the others by being in a different key.
It is very clear, from all the sonatas, that Vivaldi was able to exploit the versatility of the cello in his writing for it. His demands on the player include string-crossing figures, wide leaps, flamboyant scale passages and broken chords. Being both a melody instrument able to carry a strong and wide-ranging line, and a ‘bass instrument that could double or ornament a bass line, the cello offered him unique opportunities for combining both functions in a single part. So he requires it to negotiate high and low registers, and the transition between them, with great mobility, and is able to suggest a quality of interior monologue in which the cello answers and responds to itself in different parts of the tonal spectrum. But over and above all this, Vivaldi seems to write for the cello with special sympathy and identification; the instrument’s low register and plangent tone give the sonatas have a gravity and expressive pathos seldom found to such an extent in his violin works.
Thus it is typically in the first and third movements of these sonatas that we lind thoughtful, contemplative and sometimes melancholic music, full of expressive nuance, almost unique in Vivaldi’s output. This aspect is especially strong in the minor-key sonatas RV 40, 42, 43 and 44, and their faster movements, though much livelier and sometimes calling for considerable bravura, seem to share the generally thoughtful mood.
In contrast to the minor-key works, a remarkable aspect of the sonatas as a group is the presence of no less than three in the key of B flat major. This is a particularly rich and mellow-toned key for the cello, and it engenders relaxed, inventive works of serene mastery. Here the fast movements tend to be dance-like, sometimes with rustic and jocular undertones, and sometimes quirky, asymmetrical phrasing, while the slow movements are calmly melodic in conception.
Malcolm MacDonald
(2007)
Franz Tausch's Double Clarinet Concertos
Franz Tausch was born in Heidelberg in 1762 and died in Berlin in 1817. He was one of the earliest of the great clarinet virtuosi. He was taught by his father, Jacob, from the age of six, and two years later became a junior member of the Mannheim orchestra, playing violin and clarinet. When he was only thirteen he joined his father as a full-time member of the orchestra. Mozart would probably have heard Tausch father and son playing in the orchestra when he visited Mannheim in 1777. But by the time he made his famous comment ‘Oh, if only we had clarinets! – you can’t believe what a beautiful effect a symphony with flutes, oboes and clarinets makes’ (letter to his father, 3 December 1778) the Tausches had moved with the court to Munich.
From Munich Franz Tausch began to develop his solo career, finding opportunities to travel. In 1789 he accepted the position of chamber musician to the dowager Queen of Prussia and moved to Berlin. Later he also played in King Frederick William II’s orchestra. After the king’s death in 1797 his successor Frederick William III offered Tausch employment, and he remained in Berlin, founding the Conservatorium der Blasinstrumente (Conservatory for Wind Instruments) in 1805. Tausch had many distinguished pupils, including Crusell and Heinrich Baermann.
Tausch’s qualities were described in an obituary notice in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung of 19 March 1817: ‘The son, too [Franz Tausch], acquired a rare perfection on this instrument and won over the whole audience by his seductive, gentle tone and tasteful execution.’ The report adds: ‘He also wrote several concertos and quartets; only a few of the former are published.’
The double concertos were performed from time to time by Tausch with his own son Friedrich Wilhelm. Two such occasions, 21 December 1807 and 6 January 1812, are recorded in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. On the first his eight-year-old daughter also took part, performing a Clementi Fantaisie on the piano; having been a prodigy himself he seems to have wanted the same for his children. It is not certain when his double clarinet concertos were written, or indeed how many he composed. According to Pamela Weston (More Clarinet Virtuosi of the Past, 1977, p253) the second, Op 26, was published by Schlesinger around 1818, but a concerto with the later opus number, Op 27, was written ‘by 1797’ and published by Hummel around the turn of the century. The sequence of opus numbers may not be a reliable guide to the order of composition.
Concerto No 1, Op 27, is scored for strings with two flutes, two bassoons and two horns. The first movement themes have a strong rhythmical foundation, giving the soloists scope for decoration. With the arrival of the second subject the strings melt away, abandoning the soloists to the company of two bassoons. The second movement, a tender Adagio, is interrupted by a menacing switch to the minor, with ominous off-beat semiquavers in the strings. Tranquillity is restored, however, in time for the light-hearted Rondo, which, despite its virtuoso demands on the soloists, qualifies for the present-day category of ‘easy listening’.
The Concerto No 2, Op 26, opens with a slow introduction, supported by the full weight of trumpets and drums. The Allegro section which follows will have none of it, however, and replaces solemnity with lightness and elegance. The soloists, when they enter, are happy to comply. The distribution of musical material is even-handed and each soloist has a share of the cake. After a conscientiously worked-out development section the music slips unobtrusively into the recapitulation. The slow movement is introduced by the strings, but after eight bars they depart, leaving the field to a wind quartet consisting of the two soloists, horn and bassoon. The finale, Rondo, is in essence a theme with variations. If the dotted rhythms of the theme suggest a certain militaristic tendency, it is immediately offset by ornamental and entertaining figuration in the solo parts, showing how far solo clarinet playing had developed by this time.
Michael Freyhan
Florentine Music of the Sixteenth Century
From being a ‘city state’ and a ‘republic’ from the thirteenth through into the fifteenth century, Florence gradually came under the effective control of the Medici family as a ruling clan. Their lifestyle, always brilliant and often flamboyant, took on more and more the character of a court, and this change was reflected in the lavish festivities they organised to celebrate important events.
The so-called intermedii or ‘interludes’ (usually numbering six) of the spectacular theatrical productions staged under the Medici were one of the richest of the pre-operatic cultural manifestations of late-sixteenth-century Florence. Two intermedii come from the play La Pellegrina (a spoken comedy by Girolamo Bargagli), written to celebrate the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici to Christine of Lorraine in 1589. Most of the poetic texts set to music were written by the young Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621), later to become one of the most eminent of the early opera librettists; the bulk of the music was shared between Luca Marenzio (1553/54-1599), one of the very greatest of madrigalists, who wrote the second and third intermedii, and Cristofano Malvezzi (1547-1599), then maestro di capella at Florence cathedral, who wrote most of the other four. Certain individual numbers were also composed by Emilio de’ Cavalieri (c.1550-1602), others by such operatic luminaries as Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini who, as skilled singers themselves, excelled in the specialised art of writing virtuosic monodies.
Each intermedio took as its theme an allegorical subject. The second was a representation of the rivalry between the Muses and Pierides, set in a garden with birds singing during the Sinfonia while a mountain, with seated nymphs, rose out of the ground. Two grottos on either side accommodated the Muses and the Pierides. After the Sinfonia, a madrigal was sung by two young men and a boy accompanied by harp and lyra viol, followed by a grand madrigal sung by the Pierides, to which the Muses replied with a yet grander madrigal for double choir. Finally, the Nymphs gave their judgement in favour of the Muses in a sonorous finale for three choirs accompanied by all available instruments.
The six of Rhythm and Harmony. The scene was the sky at dawn, with the Council of the gods descending while the first madrigal was played and sung. Then a choir accompanied by a large instrumental group sang a chorus by Malvezzi, followed by a song by Cavalieri. Then everyone joined in a huge madrigal by Malvezzi, the words of which took the form of a riverenza, or act of homage to Grand Duke Ferdinand, finishing with a vocal ballet contemporaneously described as containing ‘such sweet harmony and miraculous vistas that it would be impossible to hear or see anything to surpass it...’.
The remainder of the music here was also designed for entertainment, but for a private rather than a public audience. Whilst the vocal music dates mostly from the early years of the sixteenth century and had a relatively short life, the dance music is part of an Italian repertory that seems to have been found in Italian sources as late as the early years of the following century.
As may be seen from their title, these instrumental dances were usually derived from popular songs as well as from composed music. Few ensemble settings of these dances are found in Italian sources, although from 1536 they appear in countless Italian lute settings. The reason for this may be that the Italian minstrels knew the tunes well and the players of the accompanying parts relied upon accepted formulas, rather than elegant part-writing. The use of accompanying formulas is borne out in these settings, all of which are from manuscript and printed sources compiled for use ouside Italy. The ‘Dance songs’, though, are derived from a mid-century Tuscan settings of popular songs with the tune in the middle part.
The term frottola is a fairly loose one, and embraces settings of several related verse forms, often on erotic or ‘streetwise’ subjects. The distinction between ‘popular’ and ‘serious’, always difficult if not impossible to draw realistically or convincingly, is particularly elusive at this period.
David Munrow
The so-called intermedii or ‘interludes’ (usually numbering six) of the spectacular theatrical productions staged under the Medici were one of the richest of the pre-operatic cultural manifestations of late-sixteenth-century Florence. Two intermedii come from the play La Pellegrina (a spoken comedy by Girolamo Bargagli), written to celebrate the wedding of the Grand Duke Ferdinando de’ Medici to Christine of Lorraine in 1589. Most of the poetic texts set to music were written by the young Ottavio Rinuccini (1562-1621), later to become one of the most eminent of the early opera librettists; the bulk of the music was shared between Luca Marenzio (1553/54-1599), one of the very greatest of madrigalists, who wrote the second and third intermedii, and Cristofano Malvezzi (1547-1599), then maestro di capella at Florence cathedral, who wrote most of the other four. Certain individual numbers were also composed by Emilio de’ Cavalieri (c.1550-1602), others by such operatic luminaries as Jacopo Peri and Giulio Caccini who, as skilled singers themselves, excelled in the specialised art of writing virtuosic monodies.
Each intermedio took as its theme an allegorical subject. The second was a representation of the rivalry between the Muses and Pierides, set in a garden with birds singing during the Sinfonia while a mountain, with seated nymphs, rose out of the ground. Two grottos on either side accommodated the Muses and the Pierides. After the Sinfonia, a madrigal was sung by two young men and a boy accompanied by harp and lyra viol, followed by a grand madrigal sung by the Pierides, to which the Muses replied with a yet grander madrigal for double choir. Finally, the Nymphs gave their judgement in favour of the Muses in a sonorous finale for three choirs accompanied by all available instruments.
The six of Rhythm and Harmony. The scene was the sky at dawn, with the Council of the gods descending while the first madrigal was played and sung. Then a choir accompanied by a large instrumental group sang a chorus by Malvezzi, followed by a song by Cavalieri. Then everyone joined in a huge madrigal by Malvezzi, the words of which took the form of a riverenza, or act of homage to Grand Duke Ferdinand, finishing with a vocal ballet contemporaneously described as containing ‘such sweet harmony and miraculous vistas that it would be impossible to hear or see anything to surpass it...’.
The remainder of the music here was also designed for entertainment, but for a private rather than a public audience. Whilst the vocal music dates mostly from the early years of the sixteenth century and had a relatively short life, the dance music is part of an Italian repertory that seems to have been found in Italian sources as late as the early years of the following century.
As may be seen from their title, these instrumental dances were usually derived from popular songs as well as from composed music. Few ensemble settings of these dances are found in Italian sources, although from 1536 they appear in countless Italian lute settings. The reason for this may be that the Italian minstrels knew the tunes well and the players of the accompanying parts relied upon accepted formulas, rather than elegant part-writing. The use of accompanying formulas is borne out in these settings, all of which are from manuscript and printed sources compiled for use ouside Italy. The ‘Dance songs’, though, are derived from a mid-century Tuscan settings of popular songs with the tune in the middle part.
The term frottola is a fairly loose one, and embraces settings of several related verse forms, often on erotic or ‘streetwise’ subjects. The distinction between ‘popular’ and ‘serious’, always difficult if not impossible to draw realistically or convincingly, is particularly elusive at this period.
David Munrow
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