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Bach & his Contemporaries
Session Two: Italy
A LIFE Institute Course
Bob Fabian
Spring 2015
[LIFEcourses.ca]
This Week's Plan
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Architecture: Bach vs Vivaldi
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Italian States: 1690 & 1790
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Italian Musical Foundations
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Monteverdi, Frescobaldi, Corelli
Focus on Venice
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Italian Musical Hegemony
Vivaldi
Lotti
B Marcello
others
Next Week: Germany
Architectural Difference
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Bach
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Multiple interwoven musical lines
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Bach, Little Fugue in G minor, Organ
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddbxFi3-UO4
Vivaldi
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Singing line above figured base
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Vivaldi, Winter, Four Seasons (Allegro)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qqe0GdUpJHs
Italian States, 1690
From: A Companion to Eighteenth-Century Europe
Blackwell, 2008
Italian States, 1790
Difficult Transition
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Italy was the gateway to European trade
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Until sailing technology allowed direct sea links
Italy was the gateway to ancient wisdom
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Until modern science became source of wisdom
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Commercial focus moved elsewhere
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Musical focus stayed on Italian states
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Venice: Premier 18th century tourist destination
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Boasted 6 opera house in Bach's day
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A combination of Hollywood & Las Vegas
Early 18th Century Italian Musicians
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London: 80 Italian Musicians
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Vienna: 100 Italian Musicians
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St Petersburg: 25 Italian Musicians
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Dresden: 40 Italian Musicians
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Paris: 50 Italian Musician
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From: Larousse Encyclopedia of Music, 1974
All of Europe looked to Italian music during
Bach's lifetime, … as did Bach himself
Pillars of Italian Music
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Claudio Monteverdi (early 17 th century)
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Girolamo Frescobaldi (early 17 th century)
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The pioneer of Italian opera
Defined the new keyboard style
Arcangelo Corelli (late 17 th century)
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Established new sonata form
6 Published Sets of Sonatas
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1681, 1685, 1689, 1694, 1700, 1714
Widely circulated throughout Europe
Claudio Monteverdi
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Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi: 1567 - 1643;
composer, gambist, singer and Roman Catholic priest.
Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary,
marked the change from the Renaissance style of
music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two
styles of composition – the heritage of Renaissance
polyphony and the new basso continuo technique of
the Baroque. He wrote one of the earliest operas,
L'Orfeo, a novel work that is the earliest surviving
opera still regularly performed.
Example: L'Orfeo de Claudio Monteverdi
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBsXbn0clbU
Girolamo Frescobaldi
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Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi 1583 – 1643; one of the
most important composers of keyboard music in the late
Renaissance and early Baroque periods. A child prodigy,
Frescobaldi was appointed “organist” of St. Peter's Basilica, a
focal point of power for the Capella Giulia (a musical
organisation) from 1608 until his death.
Frescobaldi's printed collections contain some of the most
influential music of the 17th century. Pieces from his
celebrated collection of liturgical organ music, Fiori musicali
(1635), were used as models of strict counterpoint as late as
the 19th century.
Example: Toccata IX and Dario Castello Sonata I
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpfQyTc0FE
Arcangelo Corelli
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Arcangelo Corelli: (17 February 1653 – 8 January 1713) was
an Italian violinist and composer of the Baroque era.
The style of execution introduced by Corelli was of vital
importance for the development of violin playing. The paths of
all of the famous violinist-composers led to Arcangelo Corelli,
who was their "iconic point of reference".
Corelli used only a limited portion of the violin's capabilities.
The story has been told that Corelli refused to play a passage
that extended to A in a Handel's oratorio The Triumph of Time
and Truth (premiered in Rome, 1708), and felt seriously
offended when the composer (32 years his junior) played the
note.
Example: Concerto in D Major Op. 6 No. 4
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3smZkpqXYHs
Antonio Vivaldi
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Antonio Lucio Vivaldi: 1678 – 1741; Italian Baroque
composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher and cleric. Born
in Venice, he is known mainly for composing many
instrumental concertos, for the violin and a variety of
other instruments, as well as sacred choral works and
more than forty operas.
Many of his compositions were written for the female
music ensemble of the Ospedale della Pietà, a home
for abandoned children where Vivaldi (who had been
ordained as a Catholic priest) was employed from
1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740. Vivaldi also had
some success with expensive stagings of his operas
in Venice, Mantua and Vienna. After meeting the
Emperor Charles VI, Vivaldi moved to Vienna, hoping
for preferment. However, the Emperor died soon after
Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died less than a
year later in poverty.
Vivaldi: What to Hear?
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Traditional
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Antonio Vivaldi - The Four Seasons - Julia Fischer
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“Authentic”
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Vivaldi The Four Seasons Europa Galante, Fabio Biondi
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLSzcBuQnag
Modern
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Nigel Kennedy Vivaldi The 4 Seasons
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G5BADZH2sQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JbK7k-rZ5E
No “right” way to hear great music!
Learn More - Vivaldi
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Documentary Vivaldi and the women of the
Pieta - Vivaldi's Women
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"Viva Vivaldi!" - Cecilia Bartoli & "Il Giardino
Armonico"
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=153WVp8QJQ0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxwyQZhBlZw
Orlando Furioso (Vivaldi) - San Francisco - 1990
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeIBuUWtEOU
Antonio Lotti
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Antonio Lotti (ca. 1667 – 1740) was an Italian Baroque
composer. He was born in Venice, although his father was
Kapellmeister at Hanover at the time. Lotti made his career at
St Mark's, first as an alto singer (from 1689) and eventually
(from 1736) as maestro di cappella, a position he held until his
death. He was given leave to go to Dresden in 1717, where a
number of his operas were produced.
Lotti wrote in a variety of forms, producing masses, cantatas,
madrigals, around thirty operas, and instrumental music. His
work is considered a bridge between the established Baroque
and emerging Classical styles. Lotti is thought to have
influenced Bach, Handel, and Zelenka, all of whom had copies
of Lotti's mass, the Missa Sapientiae.
Example: Antonio Lotti - Missa sapientiae
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2D4_Jx8QVw
Benedetto Marcello
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Benedetto Giacomo Marcello: (1686 - 1739) was an Italian
composer, writer, advocate, magistrate, and teacher.
Born in Venice, Benedetto Marcello was a member of a noble
family and his compositions are frequently referred to as Patrizio
Veneto. Although he was a music student of Antonio Lotti, his
father wanted Benedetto to devote himself to law. Benedetto
combined a life in law and public service with one in music. In 1711
he was appointed a member of the Council of Forty (in Venice's
central government), and in 1730 he went to Pola as Provveditore
(district governor). Due to his health having been "impaired by the
climate" of Istria, Marcello retired after eight years in the capacity of
Camerlengo to Brescia where he died of tuberculosis in 1739.
Example: B. Marcello: Psaumes de David, Jean-Christophe Frisch
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwXSA0e9rKE
Other Composers in Venice
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Rosanna Scalfi Marcello – religious, but not civil, wife of
Benedetto Marcello, singer, composer
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Was one of the two main characters in Raff's opera Benedetto Marcello
Alessandro Ignazio Marcello – noble family, brother of
Benedetto Marcello, published concerto sets, contested
Rosanna's inheritance
Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni – independently wealthy,
never held musical position, many of his operas are
lost, but instrumental music remains
Plus composers in other Italian states (cities)
Next Week: German Composers
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Impact of Luther on German music
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Key predecessors of Bach
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Dieterich Buxtehude
Johann Pachelbel
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The music of Johann Sebastian Bach
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The music of George Phillip Telemann
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Other “dense” German composers
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Week 4: Germans & Italians in England