Where to dig for new exciting repertoire
Arias with violoncello obbligato from the Farnese court of Parma e Piacenza
When you write a weekly newsletter, as I have been doing now for a little more than a year, it is good practice to spread the writing during the whole week, something like outlining on Mondays, writing on Tuesdays, editing on Wednesdays, Writing the title and drawing the cartoon on Thursdays and finally formatting and uploading on Fridays. This leaves the weekend to decide the following topic, hopefully picking it up from a previously compiled list.
I do have a list somewhere, but you may have noticed that I scarcely follow this good advice. For me, this weekly commitment became a space for my personal research about Violoncello da Spalla. Sometimes it is hard to carve out enough time, but I enjoy research and sharing that with my readers.
This week I’d like to draw your attention to this article by Alessandro Sanguineti (2013), "Unearthing Forgotten Treasures: Anonymous Arias with Obbligato Violoncello at the Estense Library, Modena," Performance Practice Review: Vol. 18: No. 1
I read it with pleasure and excitement. Here is an incomplete review:
1. The two families of Este (dukes of Ferrara, Modena, Reggio) and Farnese (dukes of Parma and Piacenza) are strictly related through weddings during the XVII century. The role of the Este family in the development of the violin family is widely known. At the same time, lesser-known is the lead role of the Farnese house, which brings the attention to two more cities not mentioned before, Parma and Piacenza. In the Este collection of music manuscripts in Modena, there are volumes coming from the court of Farnese that were considered anonymous. Through attentive matching with opera librettos performed in Parma and Piacenza, it was possible to hypothesise an attribution to Bernardo Sabatini for the manuscript Mus G. 291, which contains arias composed for the performance of L’Ercole Trionfante in Piacenza, 1688. The manuscript includes three arias for Violun:° obbligato, some of the earliest arias known for violoncello obbligato.
2. Mostly, they are written in tenor key, and the cello part shifts role between concertante, continuo or embellished continuo (which strongly reminds me of Mattheson's words). Here the C string is never used, and the melody stretches the hand up to the fourth position on the first string. I have no idea why A. Sanguineti doesn’t take into consideration a tenor tuning for these arias, with which the range would be all comfortable in the first position.
3. The embellishments, combined with the key used, often suggest a diatonic fingering.
4. There are no arias for another obbligato instrument (violin or oboe or whatever) in this manuscript, leaving to violins and viola only the ritornelli and sinfonie to play.
All this to me suggests the use of a small cello, tuned G2D3A3E4, probably played by a virtuoso guest of this instrument, conducting the whole ensemble from his positions sometimes joining (and embellishing) the continuo, sometimes playing solos. Maybe from the same first violinist, but the original parts of the performance are not preserved, so we have no any confirm whether the cello part was included in that of the violins or not. One of the arias, “Penar per un bel volto”, was written for Antonio Maria Pistocchi, the author of the famous Bononcini sketch, later partner of Torelli.
Further readings:
Updates from our workshop
Our video on the aria “Bete aber auch dabei” from the cantata BWV 115 will be out this weekend!
It was an intense week, and some more intense nigh for our outstanding producer Lorenzo Vignando, and in one week since we ended the shooting, we have the final version! Here is the first shot, still without music:
We are excited and grateful, and we will present it next week in Bolzano at Centro Trevi, Thursday the 19th of May at 6 p.m.
Featured videos of the week
Not a cello da Spalla (and not on video unfortunately), but beautifully played and on topic: Bononcini and Caldara on the same words, both with cello obbligato, both on a high range of the instrument. Two good examples of the writing styles explained in the article cited above.
