Performing the First Cello Concertos

Aspects about the emerging solo cello in Giuseppe Maria Jacchini’s Opus 4 and 5

2. Chamber music influence

An important aspect in the Bolognese musical milieu is that the publication of books during Jacchini’s youth and professional years as cellist, manufactured generally in the presses of Giacomo Monti and Marino Silvani, can be subsequently seen as a stimulus and a medium of spreading performance practices that lead later to evolve the orchestral concerto. (cf. Footnote 1) All types of ensemble settings, from Sonatas a 3 to a 8, might count to the musical background in Bologna during Jacchini’s career and thus to the growth of bigger ensemble performance practices.

Examples of Sonatas a 3 to highlight are Giovanni Battista Bassani’s Sinfonie Op.5, whose title proposes the pieces either a 2 or a 3, with the violoncello a beneplacito or obligato. With the exception of the second sonata in which the violoncello doubles the organ part, the rest of the collection the violoncello’s line is part of a three voice contrapuntal texture sustained by the basso continuo.

Examples 1 and 2: Giovanni Battista Bassani, Sinfonie a due e tre Strumenti, col Basso Continuo per l'Organo, Op.5, Bologna 1683 (reprinted in 1688). Two examples of scoring the violoncello in Bassani's Op.5. In the sonatas a 2 the violoncello is referred a beneplacito o se piace, while in the sonatas a 3 the violoncello is obbligato.

It is feasible that Bassani was influenced by Giovanni Battista Mazzaferrata’s Il primo libro delle Sonate, Op.5 and maybe by the recently Bolognese reprint of the Sonate a tre, Op.1 by Arcangelo Corelli in 1682, a year before Bassani’s publication. (cf. Footnote 2)

Both Mazzaferrata and Corelli’s pieces share the structure and scoring used by Bassani. The Sonata a 3 under the auspices of Corelli’s reprints appeared rather often in Bologna from the 1680s on. (cf. Footnote 3) Giovanni Bononcini’s Op.1, Op.2, and Op.4 display the Sonata a 3 model too amid which his Sinfonie Op.4 encloses cello solos in the middle movements of Sinfonia Quinta and Duodecima. (cf. Footnote 4) Among them, and as I will further mention, remarkable cello passages are found in Bernardi’s Sonate da Camera a tre from 1692 (see next entries).

Example 3: Giovanni Bononcini, Sinfonie a tre Istromenti, col Basso per l'Organo, Op.4, Bologna 1686 - Sinfonia Duodecima (Vivace)

On the other hand, the Sonate a tre, so-called Pletro Armonico Op.5 by the dilettante composer Pirro Albergati, Jacchini’s patron, presents a violoncello obligato part-book. However, nothing can be outlined in this collection that provide us insights about a relation between the term obligato and a solo role for the referred instrument. Rather than a solo role, it might stands for a “compulsory” presence of the instrument in the ensemble. Albergati was a notable patron of composers and benefactor of charitable works in Bologna. (cf. Footnote 5) As exposed in the first entry, Jacchini was recommended by Albergati when a cello position became vacant in San Petronio in 1689. In gratitude to Albergati’s patronage, Jacchini dedicated his Concerti Op.4 to him. (cf. Footnote 6) Although not possible to confirm, did Albergati have in mind a cellist like Gabrielli, Jacchini or Bononcini for his violoncello obligato?

Image 1: Pirro Albergati, Pletro Armonico composto di dieci Sonate da Camera, Op.5, Bologna 1687

Bigger instrumentation mediums featuring alto and tenor violas appeared in contemporary collections, such as for instance a 4 pieces like Giovanni Bononcini Op.5, Torelli’s Op.3, Op.5, and more importantly Op.6, which functioned as basis model for Jacchini’s concerti. This setting, rather popular in previous collections of ballet music in Modena, (cf. Footnote 7) helped to build, next to instrumental performances practices in San Petronio, the foundation of orchestral playing developed in Bologna by among others Torelli.

Besides, Bononcini’s Sinfonie Op.3 presents string pieces a 5 and a 6 in different configurations: a 5 with a tenor viola, a 6 with four violin parts and an alto viola, and a 6 with three violin parts, an alto viola and a tenor viola part, all of them with an extra violoncello part. This book might have been influenced by Gioseffo Maria Placuzzi’s Sonatas Op.1, published almost twenty years earlier and written for performances at San Petronio in cori spezzati. Placuzzi’s book encloses from sonatas a 2 to sonatas a 8, two choirs of string ensembles, each of them with part-books for violoncello. Next to Placuzzi’s Sonate Op.1, Bononcini’s Sinfonie Op.3 and Torelli’s Op.5, and Op.6, we have also among early examples to mention Maurizio Cazzati’s Sonate Op.35 bearing pieces from a due to a cinque with the addition of a trumpet, Giovanni Battista Vitali’s Sonate Op.5, and Giovanni Maria Bononcini’s Op.5.

Outside the Emilian region, a cinque collections, i.e., with a tenor viola part, appeared rather often in Venetian collections at the beginning of the eighteenth century, such as Tomaso Albinoni’s Sinfonie e Concerti Op.2, (cf. Footnote 8) Concerti a cinque Op.5, and Vivaldi’s L’estro Armonico Op.3. These examples, however, may be not enough substantial sources in providing a clear connection of musical forms and their performance practices within the milieu in which Jacchini developed his career.

Footnotes:

1. All Jacchini’s works were published in Bologna except his Op.3 published in Modena.

2. MAZZAFERRATA, G. M., Il primo libro delle sonate a due Violini Con vn Bassetto Viola se piace […] op.5, Bologna 1674, Giacomo Monti. Mazzaferrata and Bassani worked together in Ferrara. Archival material shows that Mazzaferrata held the post of organist and maestro di cappella at the Ferrarese Accademia della Morte from 1665 until his death occurred February 25 1681. He left the post of organist in 1670 which was taken by the Bolognese Francesco Passarini for approximately a year. Bassani took the position at the end of 1671 or beginning of 1672. Cf. Libri mastri, 1662-82, b. K: Libro autentico del entrata e spesa della Compagnia della Morte… per l’anno 1665, Ferrara, Arch. stor. diocesano, in MONALDINI, S., s.v., Giovanni Battista MAZZAFERRATA, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 72 (2008), Treccani, http://www.treccani.it; Catal. dei maestri di Cappella ed Organisti dell'Accad. della Morte di Ferrara, in A. Cavicchi, Contrib. alla bibliogr. di A. Corelli, in Ferrara. Riv. del Comune, II, 2 (1960), pp. 43 ss. in CAVICCHI, A., s.v., Giovanni Battista BASSANI, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani - Volume 7 (1970), Treccani, http://www.treccani.it, Corelli’s Sonate a tre Op.1 was reprinted by Monti in 1682, 1684 and 1688, this last year the same one of Bassani’s Sinfonie, Op.5 and Mazzaferrata’s Sonate Op.5 reprint.

3. Sonatas a 3 were becoming the standard setting earlier in Bergamo and Ferrara due to the works of Tarquinio Merula, Maurizio Cazzati and Giovanni Legrenzi, published mostly in Venice.

4. As well, Torelli’s Op.1 published the same year as Bononcini’s Op.4, separates the violoncello from the rest of the continuo ensemble. In both collections the continuo ensemble comprises two part-books with the same music; one for Tiorba, ò Violone and another for Organo. The violoncello is thus not a member of the continuo ensemble. TORELLI, G., Sonate a trè stromenti con il basso continuo, op.1, Bologna 1686, Giacomo Monti.

5. CROWTHER, V., The Oratorio in Bologna 1650-1730, Oxford University Press, 1999, pg. 15.

6. The dedication reads as follows: Illustrissimo Signor mio Sig. e Padron Colendissirno. Corsero già, tutte le Virtudi più riguardevoli per farsi il Trono nel Grand'Animo di V. S. lllustriss. Mà perche ogn'una di esse, vantando da se sola una Grandezza singolare, presumeva di venir preferita al Primato; la gara riuscì sempre fra loro più che mai considerabile, quando la Musica, che hà unicamente la forza di accordar insieme le differenze, seppe unirle tutte in un armonioso Concerto, che è quello che segue à render così soaue nella Tromba della Fama il suono perfettissimo delle di Lei Glorie. Onde non hà da parer strano se al rimbombo di queste, che per tutto si fa sentire, io vengo a formar da lontano un picciol Eco con la tenuita delle mie Note; mentre hauendo dato loro la generosa Bontà di V. S. lllustriss. tutto il primo essere, è ben di ragione che si conseruino sotto il suo benignissimo Padrocinio, potendo sol esso render soffribili le dissonanze del mio poco talento, col modularle à Tono d'un infinito debito, con che profondamente mi dedico Di V. S. Illustrissima Umiliss. Devotiss. Obligatiss. Servitore GIUSEPPE IACCHINI. Giovanni Bononcini also dedicated to Albergati his Sinfonie Op.4 in 1686. As Richard Maunder suggests, it seems likely that the dedication of Jacchini is probable due to Albergati’s financial aid during the years of non activity of the Cappella Musicale at San Petronio. Cf. MAUNDER, R, The Scoring of Baroque Concertos, Boydell Press, 2004, pg.27.

7. VITALI, G. B., Balletti, Correnti alla Francese, Gagliarde e Brando per Ballare […], Op.3, Bologna 1667, Giacomo Monti, reprinted in 1674 at Monti’s. In the first print Vitali appears as Musico di Violone da Brazzo in San Petronio di Bologna, & Accademico Filaschise, while in the reprint as Maestro di Capella del Santissimo Rosario di Bologna, & Accademico Filaschise, probably after he left vacant the post of violoncello in San Petronio. Also Sonate a due, trè, quattro, e cinque stromenti, Op.5, Bologna 1669, Giacomo Monti, reprinted in 1677, contains two sonatas a quattro and one a cinque. BONONCINI, G. M., Ariette, Correnti, Gighe, Allemande e Sarabande […], Op.4, Bologna 1673, Giacomo Monti, reprinted in 1677 in Bologna and in Venice by Francesco Magni, Trattenimenti Musicali et tre, et à quattro stromenti, Op.9, Bologna 1675, Giacomo Monti, only second violin and continuo parts are extant. COLOMBI, G., Sinfonia da camera, Op.1, Bologna 1668 (non publisher name). BONONCINI, G. M., Sinfonia, Allemande, Correnti, e Sarabande à 5. e 6. col suo Basso Continuo, Op.5, Bologna 1671, Giacomo Monti.

8. Although not reflected in the instrumentation forces, the title resembles Torelli’s Op.5.