Biagio Marini, Sonata Nona, Op. 8

Though we know of no solos written specifically for the cello before the second half of the 1600s, there was in the early part of the century a repertoire of ensemble canzonas and sonatas in which the instrument (or its slightly larger antecedent) could have played. Most of the ensemble sonatas or canzonas of this era have parts for both treble and bass instruments (the combination of two trebles and one bass was particularly popular); less commonly they might be just for one or two treble instruments (plus the ever-present basso continuo), but there are very few such works for bass instruments without a treble. This makes Marini's Sonata Nona rather unusual. Though its score indicates that it was written for bassoons, it was a frequent practice to substitute instruments of a similar range (trombone, theorbo, bass violin or cello). The two solo parts engage in a spirited dialogue while the basso continuo most often plays a simplified version of the solo lines. [CH]

Tarquinio Merula, Gaudeamus omnes

Tarquinio Merula was born in Cremona, and returned there later in life after stints as organist to the king of Poland, and a number of years in Bergamo, where he took over the post left open after the untimely death of Alessandro Grandi. Merula was a progressive composer of both vocal and instrumental music, well aware of, and at the forefront of, the latest stylistic developments. He was among the first composers to write solo motets with string accompaniment, including the sparkling and virtuosic Gaudeamus omnes for soprano, violin, and continuo. Text and translation. [BG]

Luigi Boccherini, Cello sonata G. 17

Luigi Boccherini had a reputation as one of the foremost cello virtuosos of his day, but even in his lifetime, he became much better known as a composer. This is in large part due to the fact that there was a great increase in the demand for instrumental chamber music in the late 18th century, which meant that a musician could become well known over a wide geographical area without having to travel and perform. Much of this demand for printed music was driven by the growing amateur market, but Boccherini's works seem for the most part to be written with the capabilities of the professional virtuoso in mind. This is true even for works written later in his life, after his own performing career was more or less at an end. The demanding nature of his compositions led to difficulties with his publishers, most notably Ignaz Pleyel, himself a composer of much simpler music. Despite these difficulties, Boccherini never wavered from his personal compositional style, characterized by delicate effects of texture or rhythmic figuration, a predilection for the softer and gentler characters and colors, and an unusual amount of melodic and rhythmic detail.

Luigi was born in 1743 in the small Tuscan city of Lucca. His father was a double bass player, and his parents must have had high artistic ambitions for all of their children, since more than one of Luigi's six siblings had careers as professional dancers, and his brother Giovanni became a highly regarded poet/librettist. Luigi's unusual talent must have been evident early on, since went to Rome to study with G. B. Constanzi in 1753. At age 13 he performed a cello concerto of his own composition in Lucca (and received a fee on par with the best musicians of the city). In his teenage years he also began to be active as a touring virtuoso, and between 1758 and 1764 he had several periods of residence in Vienna, where he was also active as an orchestral cellist. Starting in late 1767, the year of his first publications (of string quartets and string trios), he spent six months in Paris, planning to continue on to London. However he instead moved in 1768 to Spain, where he would spend the rest of his life.

The Cello Sonata G. 17 (the "G." numbers refer to the comprehensive catalog of Boccherini's works by Yves Gérard) was never published during Boccherini's lifetime. It was most likely written for the composer's own use in his younger years as a travelling virtuoso. As with most continuo sonatas written after 1750, the accompanying bass line was written for a (second) cello. This delightful work, with its combination of lyricism, virtuosity, pathos, and fun, shows why Boccherini's sonatas continue to be favorites of cellists more than 200 years after the composer's death. [CH]

Johann Sebastian Bach, Contrapuncti 1 & 3 from BWV 1080

These pieces come from a work left unfinished at J. S. Bach's death and published posthumously by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel as The Art of the Fugue (the elder Bach himself avoided the term "fugue" in his manuscript, using instead the Latin "contrapunctus"), comprising 14 fugues and 4 canons on a single theme. Though conceived as a didactic keyboard work, its notation in score format and the independence of its individual voices mean that it lends itself well to a performance such as ours, with a separate instrument for each voice. The Art of the Fugue—one of several attempts by Bach throughout his life to explore thoroughly and bring to a new degree of expression and completion all the possibilities of a certain idea (e.g. the Well-Tempered Clavier, B Minor Mass, Goldberg Variations, etc.)—contains all manner of contrapuntal complexities, but here we will stick with two of the "simple" fugues that begin this monumental work. Contrapunctus 1 is based on the theme in its "rectus" (right-side up) form, and Contrapunctus 3 on its "inversus" (upside down), with a chromatic counter-subject. [CH]

Matthias Weckmann, Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste

In commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of the great North German organist and composer Matthias Weckmann, we presented a program on 11/13/2016 centered around his cantata Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste. Showing a strong musical inclination from an early age, Weckmann was brought under the tutelage of Heinrich Schütz in Dresden, where he met and befriended (among others) Johann Jakob Froberger and Christoph Bernhard, also featured in that program. During his years in Dresden, Weckmann made several extensive trips to northern Germany and Denmark, first to study the organ with Jacob Praetorius and Heinrich Scheidemann in Hamburg, and later to work for a few years at the Danish court, where the effects of the Thirty Years' War were less severe than in most of Germany. During one of these trips he met and married his first wife in Lübeck, and best man at their wedding was none other than Franz Tunder, organist at the Marienkirche (and Dietrich Buxtehude's direct predecessor in this position). Weckmann was also an outstanding organist, and in 1655 he won a position as organist in Hamburg's Jakobikirche after a reportedly spectacular audition.

Weckmann composed Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste in 1663, in response to a devastating outbreak of the plague that year which killed a significant portion of the population of northern Germany, especially in port cities such as Hamburg. "How desolate lies the city," cries the soprano, urged by the composer to stand at a distance from the bass singer, to further underscore the loneliness and isolation felt by survivors. This powerful work is set to text from the first chapter of Lamentations, but Weckmann uses the text rather freely, supporting the dramatic expression of the music, rather than adhering strictly to the structure of the original biblical text. Text and translation. [BG]

Arcangelo Corelli, Op. 1, No. 5

Arcangelo Corelli counts as one of the most influential composers of the 17th century, and, unlike most other composers of the time who gained esteem through their vocal music, his fame rests solely on his 6 collections of instrumental music. These works were admired and emulated as ideal models of taste and form by subsequent generations of composers well into the 19th century; his Opus 5 alone was reprinted over 40 times by the year 1800. Corelli, after spending some time in Bologna, lived for most of his life in Rome, known as an outstanding violin virtuoso and prominent teacher, attracting students from all over Europe. Interestingly, the trio sonatas of his first book are not quite as settled in form, or "Corellian," as is much of his later oeuvre, and we can still hear some of the unpredictability and sudden shifts of affect that we know from earlier Italian composers. [BG]

Nicola Fiorenza, Concerto for recorder and strings

Little is known about the life and work of the composer and violin player Nicola Fiorenza. Born around 1700, he worked in Naples until his death in 1764. He was a violinist in the Royal Chapel and taught all stringed instruments from 1743 to 1762 at the Santa Maria di Loreto Conservatory, but was dismissed because of recurring violent behavior toward his students including beating them and threatening them with a sword! It is not easy to reconcile these accounts with the beautiful music he wrote. The late 18th-century Neapolitan historian and librarian Giuseppe Sigismondo compared Fiorenza’s musical talent in composition to that of Haydn: “Among the violin masters that I knew about 35 years ago was the valiant professor Nicolo Fiorenza, who composed excellent symphonies so full of inspiration and charm that only the sublime productions of truly Pindaric music by the German Haiden [sic] have since reawakened the memory of them.”

There are approximately thirty manuscripts of works by Fiorenza in the library of the San Pietro a Majella including trio sonatas for two violins and figured bass, 15 concertos for various combinations of instruments, and nine sinfonias. Four of the concertos written between 1726 and 1728 call for flauto and strings. While the influence of Corelli and the Venetian style is unmistakable in them, they are infused with the musical language of the city of Naples, in the opera-like musical motifs and the ever shifting moods or affetti. [MR]

Jean-Baptiste Bréval, Op. 39, No. 2

Jean-Baptiste Bréval was one of the leading French cellists and pedagogues of his generation. His Op. 39, published in the 1790s, is a set of trios for solo cello, violin, and a bass line (also played by a cello). Lighthearted and fun, the second of these trios will end our online "album," and, we hope, whet your appetite for more! [CH]