Reviving the Baroque Concerto
WARREN A. BEBBINGTON
The MHS Review 237 Vol. 3, No. 3 March 26, 1979
"How is it possible for me to remember everything I wrote for violin and wind instruments as well?" asked Telemann, the composer of over 170 concerti, touching on a matter which has become a great problem for lovers of the musical Baroque ever since. So much concerto-type music was written in the early 18th-century and by such a variety of excellent composers that even defining the meaning of the word "concerto" is a monumental task.
Our knowledge of the concerto literature today is based on a rather haphazard sampling of a few hundred works by a handful of the best-known of its creators. The composers themselves have often been misjudged on the basis of a few of their works: how many people who are so fond of the energetic, driving rhythms of Vivaldi's concerti know of the feeling for Romantic tone-painting or of the dramatic breadth and passion of his numerous operas or liturgical pieces? And any assessment of Telemann must recall that he said of his concerti, "I must own that since the concerto form was never close to my heart it was indifferent to me whether I wrote a great many or not."
The list of fine concerto composers must include Corelli, Torelli, Albicastro, Albinoni, Bonporti, A. Scarlatti, Gregori, Mascitti, and the more progressive Gasparini, Manfredi, Marcello, Montanari, Taglietti, Tessarini, and Valentini in Italy; and in Germany, Heinichen, Keiser, Mattheson, Stozel, Graupner, Fasch, Hasse, Quantz, Hurlebusch, Pisendel, and the brothers Graun. Few readers will have heard any of the music of these composers.
The evolution of the concerto is bound up with the rise in popularity of an "orchestral" sound--the playing of each part by more than one player--stimulated by the immense popularity and prestige of Lully's string band in France. In many of the early concerti, the compositional technique is identical with the trio sonata--two soloists and a continuo of keyboard and bass--save that from time to time the parts are doubled by a band of strings and a second continuo. Here the contrasts come simply from the sudden change of instrumental strength; there are no melodic or tonal differences between the solo and tutti sections. Even in Corelli, whose concerti are mature examples of the genre, there are still passages which are augmented trio sonatas.
Corelli, 1653-1713, went to Bologna at the age of thirteen to study the violin and after four years was admitted to the select circle of the Accademia. Facts about his movements after 1670 are scarce and confused, but his name appears as the third of four violinists at the church of St. Louis in Rome in 1675. Certainly he was settled in Rome by 1685 when he published his first work, a set of twelve sonatas. It was not until after his death in 1714, that his Op. 6, comprising twelve concerti grossi, was published, but there seems irrefutable evidence that in 1682 he was writing and performing concerti grossi at the Accademia under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni. His op. 6 are therefore the earliest fully developed examples of the genre, full of serenity and sweet melody, with their chief contrast being that between the rich contrapuntal fabric of the allegro movements and the grace and lyricism of the slow movements.
Torelli, 1658-1709, spent most of his career in Bologna too, save 1696-1701 when he was in Germany. A much-underestimated figure, he was Italy's most prolific composer for the trumpet, and a poetic artist of impetuous, driving rhythms and luxuriant textures, reflecting the richness of the sacred musical ornament at San Petronio. A leading figure in the maturation of the concerto style, in his numerous pieces with brass or string solo the classic three-movement, fast-slow-fast form of the genre emerges. He composed for the Basilica and the Accademia, as most of his contemporaries did, and his music exhibits a wide variety of forms and styles, from the sectional da chiesa, G. 17, to the true three-movement concerto, G. 2. He used the titles sinfonia, sonata, and concerto for his music without formal distinction; though as a rule his textures were more homophonic in his cohcertos than elsewhere. Most important stylistically are his solo concerti, in which the soloist is raised to equal status with the tutti. In Corelli' s concerti, the solo sections were brief; here they are extended, involving development of and divergence from the thematic material of the tutti. Many of his violin concerti were published in his own time in sets of six, ten, or twelve works: Opus 1-5 in Bologna prior to 1696, opus 6-7 while he was abroad, and opus 8 shortly after his death in Bologna, possibly by his brother. His trumpet works and the later trumpet-and-oboe concerti survive in manuscript in the Archives of San Petronio, and less than half of them have been published or recorded. Indeed, some have never been seen by recent scholars.
On the deaths of Corelli and Torelli, the centre of attention in concerto composition shifted from Bologna to Venice. Here Albinoni, 1671-1750 played a prominent role in concerto activity, having been in his youth a member of Cardinal Ottoboni's circle in Rome and come under the influence of the Bolognese composers. But Vivaldi, 1678- 1741, was a musician of much deeper emotional gifts and abilities, and became the figure of widest fame. In his op. 3, L'Estro armonico, and op. 4, La Stravaganza, the symmetry of contrasts--between solo and tutti, fast and slow movements--is expanded to include contrasts. of mode and harmonic colour. Movements and sections within a movement are set in different keys. The soloists too become more independent of one another, often recombining with the tutti in various ways.
The enormous vogue for this kind of music partly explains the great volume of it that survives. Concerti were sometimes referred to as "plain music" to distinguish them from the important, public forms of the Baroque, opera and oratorio, both of which both had words. Concerto was commonplace music, the colloquial language of Baroque composers; but this is not to say that it was not seen as having significant emotional connotation. As in vocal music, composers were urged to think in terms of specific moods or "affections," for "anything which proceeds without these praiseworthy affections amounts to nothing, does nothing, and is worth nothing," as the ,composer-theorist Johann Mattheson wrote, " ... in each and every melody, one's purpose should be to imagine and incorporate the reigning passion of the moment, so that the instruments, by means of their tone, immediately present an eloquent and understandable address.''
A picture of the Baroque concerto must not be drawn from the great solo concerti or the Brandenburg concerti of Johann Sebastian Bach. For these represent the culmination of the literature; they are on a larger scale and involve a denser contrapuntal technique and quicker harmonic rhythm than the works of other composers. They are the exceptions, and a perception adjusted to them will view the works of others through the wrong end of a telescope. Such a perspective contributed to the 19th-century judgements of Telemann as "devoid of strength, substance or invention" (Eitner), "sedulous scribbling" (Mendel). or "He fails to capture and hold one's attention" (Riemann).
Concerto composers must be judged on other terms. In the case of Telemann, we are dealing with perhaps the most prolific composer who ever lived. Apart from his innumerable songs, suites, sonatas, and concerti, he wrote a staggering amount of church music. including 44 Passions, 12 complete cycles of services for the church year, 85 occasional services, 1500 cantatas and many oratorios. He could write a motet in eight parts, according to Handel, as easily as anyone else could write a letter.
Nor were his activities confined to composition. He was a prominent writer on musical and musico-scientific subjects, author of a treatise on singing, and another on thoroughbass. He was Musikdirektor of Hamburg from 1721 until his death in 1767, a position which involved supervising the music in the city's five principle churches, and he held several court appointments concurrently. With such a vast output, and activity, much of it forgotten today, it is difficult to characterize his musical personality. The standard for comparison should be on thoroughbass. He was Musikdirektor of Hamburg from 1721 until his death in 1767, a position which involved supervising the music in the city's five principle churches, and he held several court appointments concurrently. With such a vast output, and activity, much of it forgotten today, it is difficult to characterize his musical personality. The standard for comparison should be the works of his contemporaries Keiser, Graun, Hasse. Quantz and Graupner, and we must await the revival of their works before being too conclusive. Certainly the musiclover will find endless amounts of agreeable, attractive melody in Telemann; sometimes an irregular feeling (from displaced accent and unequal phrase-units) that one associates with Bohemian folksong; sometimes realistic imitation of nature-sounds; sometimes a search for new harmonic colours; sometimes passages that seem only clever imitations of Lully or Vivaldi but always an attractive, highly-polished veneer, and a technical smoothness and ease that is completely pleasing. If Telemann was no innovator. and his ideas always appear in conventional guises, there is still much to occupy the performer and titilate the listener.
Even in the case of Vivaldi. perhaps the greatest of all Venetian composers, our picture has been very incomplete. It is well known that he spent thirtyodd years as maestro di concerti at the Seminario musicale of the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. where he taught orphaned, illegitimate and destitute girls and formed them into bands of musicians that were famous all over Europe. "I swear nothing is more charming than to see a young and pretty nun. dressed in white. a sprig of pomegranite blossom behind one ear, leading the orchestra and beating time with all the grace and precision imaginable," wrote the French jurist and scholar Charles de Brosses of his visit to the Pieta in 1739. Vivaldi produced an enormous number of concerti for his girls for a variety of instruments in a variety of combinations.
But Vivaldi was also the composer of 94 operas. and was constantly travelling to supervise their production in Rome, Mantua, Verona. Florence, and elsewhere. These operas. almost completely unknown today, gained him high respect in his time. both in Italy and abroad. A similar breadth of feeling may be seen in his sacred works. now becoming more widely known after long neglect.
The sources of Vivaldi's dramatic capacities. so often unexploited in performances of his concerti, may be seen in what little we know of his personality. Priestly orders and an often intensely pious nature did not prevent him from managing his affairs shrewdly and earning considerable wealth from his music. The breathtaking pace of his professional life contrasts sharply with an apparently frail physical condition. And his head of fiery red hair was at times matched by his temper: for he left the Pieta forever in 1740 after a dispute over his priestly duties, and died almost a pauper a year later in Vienna.
Baroque concerto endured long into the generation when the new language of the symphony was thriving in many parts of Europe. Two pupils of Corelli. Geminiani, d. 1762. and Locatelli. d. 1764. continued to write contrapuntal concerti grossi in the tradition of their teacher. and strong survivals can be found from the pen of England's composers in the second half of the 18th century.
Warren Bebbington is an Australian Fulbright Scholar. at present completing a Ph.D in musicology at the CUNY Graduate School. _____________ _
In addition to the well-known concerti and concerti grossi of Telemann and Vivaldi mentioned in Mr. Bebbington's article. MHS also has the following recordings: Torelli: Concerto Grosso. Op. 8/6 (MHS 1234K): Concerti Op. 8/7, 10 (MHS 1053W); Concerto Op. 8/2 (MHS 520W): Corelli: Concerti Grossi-complete (MHS 1898X/ 1900K): Jacchini: Trumpet Concerto Op. 5/5 (MHS 595Y): Corelli/Geminiani: 6 Trio Sonatas arr'd. as Con. Gr. (MHS 1734M): Geminiani: 6 Con. Gr. Op. 7 (MHS 11422).
"How is it possible for me to remember everything I wrote for violin and wind instruments as well?" asked Telemann, the composer of over 170 concerti, touching on a matter which has become a great problem for lovers of the musical Baroque ever since. So much concerto-type music was written in the early 18th-century and by such a variety of excellent composers that even defining the meaning of the word "concerto" is a monumental task.
Our knowledge of the concerto literature today is based on a rather haphazard sampling of a few hundred works by a handful of the best-known of its creators. The composers themselves have often been misjudged on the basis of a few of their works: how many people who are so fond of the energetic, driving rhythms of Vivaldi's concerti know of the feeling for Romantic tone-painting or of the dramatic breadth and passion of his numerous operas or liturgical pieces? And any assessment of Telemann must recall that he said of his concerti, "I must own that since the concerto form was never close to my heart it was indifferent to me whether I wrote a great many or not."
The list of fine concerto composers must include Corelli, Torelli, Albicastro, Albinoni, Bonporti, A. Scarlatti, Gregori, Mascitti, and the more progressive Gasparini, Manfredi, Marcello, Montanari, Taglietti, Tessarini, and Valentini in Italy; and in Germany, Heinichen, Keiser, Mattheson, Stozel, Graupner, Fasch, Hasse, Quantz, Hurlebusch, Pisendel, and the brothers Graun. Few readers will have heard any of the music of these composers.
The evolution of the concerto is bound up with the rise in popularity of an "orchestral" sound--the playing of each part by more than one player--stimulated by the immense popularity and prestige of Lully's string band in France. In many of the early concerti, the compositional technique is identical with the trio sonata--two soloists and a continuo of keyboard and bass--save that from time to time the parts are doubled by a band of strings and a second continuo. Here the contrasts come simply from the sudden change of instrumental strength; there are no melodic or tonal differences between the solo and tutti sections. Even in Corelli, whose concerti are mature examples of the genre, there are still passages which are augmented trio sonatas.
Corelli, 1653-1713, went to Bologna at the age of thirteen to study the violin and after four years was admitted to the select circle of the Accademia. Facts about his movements after 1670 are scarce and confused, but his name appears as the third of four violinists at the church of St. Louis in Rome in 1675. Certainly he was settled in Rome by 1685 when he published his first work, a set of twelve sonatas. It was not until after his death in 1714, that his Op. 6, comprising twelve concerti grossi, was published, but there seems irrefutable evidence that in 1682 he was writing and performing concerti grossi at the Accademia under the patronage of Cardinal Ottoboni. His op. 6 are therefore the earliest fully developed examples of the genre, full of serenity and sweet melody, with their chief contrast being that between the rich contrapuntal fabric of the allegro movements and the grace and lyricism of the slow movements.
Torelli, 1658-1709, spent most of his career in Bologna too, save 1696-1701 when he was in Germany. A much-underestimated figure, he was Italy's most prolific composer for the trumpet, and a poetic artist of impetuous, driving rhythms and luxuriant textures, reflecting the richness of the sacred musical ornament at San Petronio. A leading figure in the maturation of the concerto style, in his numerous pieces with brass or string solo the classic three-movement, fast-slow-fast form of the genre emerges. He composed for the Basilica and the Accademia, as most of his contemporaries did, and his music exhibits a wide variety of forms and styles, from the sectional da chiesa, G. 17, to the true three-movement concerto, G. 2. He used the titles sinfonia, sonata, and concerto for his music without formal distinction; though as a rule his textures were more homophonic in his cohcertos than elsewhere. Most important stylistically are his solo concerti, in which the soloist is raised to equal status with the tutti. In Corelli' s concerti, the solo sections were brief; here they are extended, involving development of and divergence from the thematic material of the tutti. Many of his violin concerti were published in his own time in sets of six, ten, or twelve works: Opus 1-5 in Bologna prior to 1696, opus 6-7 while he was abroad, and opus 8 shortly after his death in Bologna, possibly by his brother. His trumpet works and the later trumpet-and-oboe concerti survive in manuscript in the Archives of San Petronio, and less than half of them have been published or recorded. Indeed, some have never been seen by recent scholars.
On the deaths of Corelli and Torelli, the centre of attention in concerto composition shifted from Bologna to Venice. Here Albinoni, 1671-1750 played a prominent role in concerto activity, having been in his youth a member of Cardinal Ottoboni's circle in Rome and come under the influence of the Bolognese composers. But Vivaldi, 1678- 1741, was a musician of much deeper emotional gifts and abilities, and became the figure of widest fame. In his op. 3, L'Estro armonico, and op. 4, La Stravaganza, the symmetry of contrasts--between solo and tutti, fast and slow movements--is expanded to include contrasts. of mode and harmonic colour. Movements and sections within a movement are set in different keys. The soloists too become more independent of one another, often recombining with the tutti in various ways.
The enormous vogue for this kind of music partly explains the great volume of it that survives. Concerti were sometimes referred to as "plain music" to distinguish them from the important, public forms of the Baroque, opera and oratorio, both of which both had words. Concerto was commonplace music, the colloquial language of Baroque composers; but this is not to say that it was not seen as having significant emotional connotation. As in vocal music, composers were urged to think in terms of specific moods or "affections," for "anything which proceeds without these praiseworthy affections amounts to nothing, does nothing, and is worth nothing," as the ,composer-theorist Johann Mattheson wrote, " ... in each and every melody, one's purpose should be to imagine and incorporate the reigning passion of the moment, so that the instruments, by means of their tone, immediately present an eloquent and understandable address.''
A picture of the Baroque concerto must not be drawn from the great solo concerti or the Brandenburg concerti of Johann Sebastian Bach. For these represent the culmination of the literature; they are on a larger scale and involve a denser contrapuntal technique and quicker harmonic rhythm than the works of other composers. They are the exceptions, and a perception adjusted to them will view the works of others through the wrong end of a telescope. Such a perspective contributed to the 19th-century judgements of Telemann as "devoid of strength, substance or invention" (Eitner), "sedulous scribbling" (Mendel). or "He fails to capture and hold one's attention" (Riemann).
Concerto composers must be judged on other terms. In the case of Telemann, we are dealing with perhaps the most prolific composer who ever lived. Apart from his innumerable songs, suites, sonatas, and concerti, he wrote a staggering amount of church music. including 44 Passions, 12 complete cycles of services for the church year, 85 occasional services, 1500 cantatas and many oratorios. He could write a motet in eight parts, according to Handel, as easily as anyone else could write a letter.
Nor were his activities confined to composition. He was a prominent writer on musical and musico-scientific subjects, author of a treatise on singing, and another on thoroughbass. He was Musikdirektor of Hamburg from 1721 until his death in 1767, a position which involved supervising the music in the city's five principle churches, and he held several court appointments concurrently. With such a vast output, and activity, much of it forgotten today, it is difficult to characterize his musical personality. The standard for comparison should be on thoroughbass. He was Musikdirektor of Hamburg from 1721 until his death in 1767, a position which involved supervising the music in the city's five principle churches, and he held several court appointments concurrently. With such a vast output, and activity, much of it forgotten today, it is difficult to characterize his musical personality. The standard for comparison should be the works of his contemporaries Keiser, Graun, Hasse. Quantz and Graupner, and we must await the revival of their works before being too conclusive. Certainly the musiclover will find endless amounts of agreeable, attractive melody in Telemann; sometimes an irregular feeling (from displaced accent and unequal phrase-units) that one associates with Bohemian folksong; sometimes realistic imitation of nature-sounds; sometimes a search for new harmonic colours; sometimes passages that seem only clever imitations of Lully or Vivaldi but always an attractive, highly-polished veneer, and a technical smoothness and ease that is completely pleasing. If Telemann was no innovator. and his ideas always appear in conventional guises, there is still much to occupy the performer and titilate the listener.
Even in the case of Vivaldi. perhaps the greatest of all Venetian composers, our picture has been very incomplete. It is well known that he spent thirtyodd years as maestro di concerti at the Seminario musicale of the Ospedale della Pieta in Venice. where he taught orphaned, illegitimate and destitute girls and formed them into bands of musicians that were famous all over Europe. "I swear nothing is more charming than to see a young and pretty nun. dressed in white. a sprig of pomegranite blossom behind one ear, leading the orchestra and beating time with all the grace and precision imaginable," wrote the French jurist and scholar Charles de Brosses of his visit to the Pieta in 1739. Vivaldi produced an enormous number of concerti for his girls for a variety of instruments in a variety of combinations.
But Vivaldi was also the composer of 94 operas. and was constantly travelling to supervise their production in Rome, Mantua, Verona. Florence, and elsewhere. These operas. almost completely unknown today, gained him high respect in his time. both in Italy and abroad. A similar breadth of feeling may be seen in his sacred works. now becoming more widely known after long neglect.
The sources of Vivaldi's dramatic capacities. so often unexploited in performances of his concerti, may be seen in what little we know of his personality. Priestly orders and an often intensely pious nature did not prevent him from managing his affairs shrewdly and earning considerable wealth from his music. The breathtaking pace of his professional life contrasts sharply with an apparently frail physical condition. And his head of fiery red hair was at times matched by his temper: for he left the Pieta forever in 1740 after a dispute over his priestly duties, and died almost a pauper a year later in Vienna.
Baroque concerto endured long into the generation when the new language of the symphony was thriving in many parts of Europe. Two pupils of Corelli. Geminiani, d. 1762. and Locatelli. d. 1764. continued to write contrapuntal concerti grossi in the tradition of their teacher. and strong survivals can be found from the pen of England's composers in the second half of the 18th century.
Warren Bebbington is an Australian Fulbright Scholar. at present completing a Ph.D in musicology at the CUNY Graduate School. _____________ _
In addition to the well-known concerti and concerti grossi of Telemann and Vivaldi mentioned in Mr. Bebbington's article. MHS also has the following recordings: Torelli: Concerto Grosso. Op. 8/6 (MHS 1234K): Concerti Op. 8/7, 10 (MHS 1053W); Concerto Op. 8/2 (MHS 520W): Corelli: Concerti Grossi-complete (MHS 1898X/ 1900K): Jacchini: Trumpet Concerto Op. 5/5 (MHS 595Y): Corelli/Geminiani: 6 Trio Sonatas arr'd. as Con. Gr. (MHS 1734M): Geminiani: 6 Con. Gr. Op. 7 (MHS 11422).