Books
In questo volume c'è anzitutto un'istituzione illustre, che ha sempre assolto a compiti liturgici... more In questo volume c'è anzitutto un'istituzione illustre, che ha sempre assolto a compiti liturgici e di altissima rappresentanza, facendovi fronte con grande spesa e una struttura complessa. Ricostruire quel quadro è basilare: la trama rituale, il personale a disposizione, le mansioni, i fini dell'istituzione; l'indagine sui profili intellettuali dei suoi responsabili fa emergere personalità che agivano in un'ottica di vera e propria politica culturale. Questa poderosa macchina incanala Monteverdi entro i binari delle proprie necessità, ma quest'ultimo non si limiterà all'adempimento dei suoi doveri. Al maestro di cappella e ai suoi sottoposti era riconosciuto il diritto a un'attività libero-professionale esercita molto spesso organizzandosi in «compagnie»: così dalla più importante chiesa cittadina gusti, stili, tecniche e artisti s'irradiavano nel contesto urbano investendo le chiese circostanti, ma anche gli spazi profani. Indispensabile è riflettere pure su implicazioni oggi non più così assodate, come le intense valenze semantiche di cui erano portatori, in quei frangenti liturgico-devozionali, paramenti oggetti gesti azioni regìa e musiche. Tutto era carico di significato, e di storia: tradizione e consuetudini diuturnamente rivificate conferivano continuità e riconfermavano ogni volta la ragion d'essere dell'esistente. Le esibizioni pubbliche dei corpi musicali di Stato rappresentavano certo un'ostensione di fasto sonoro, ma allo stesso tempo anche il momento di condivisione ‘popolare’ di esperienze musicali e cerimoniali non confinate negli spazi di un'ipotetica città proibita, perfettamente in sintonia con un assetto politico fondato su un patriziato urbano che coi ceti inferiori condivideva un fiero patriottismo. [Paolo Fabbri]
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Attraverso un percorso ermeneutico, frutto di una vasta campagna di ricerche archivistiche e di p... more Attraverso un percorso ermeneutico, frutto di una vasta campagna di ricerche archivistiche e di puntuali ricognizioni bibliografiche capaci di rivelare in filigrana prospettive sotto molti punti di vista sorprendenti, questo studio indaga il contesto storico, sociale ed estetico che ha fatto da cornice alla pubblicazione dell’Orfeo stampato a Venezia nel 1613 da Bartolomeo Magni. Il ritrovamento dell’unico esemplare oggi noto di questa straordinaria raccolta collettanea, qui offerto in facsimile e in edizione critica moderna, ha permesso di rintracciare significative testimonianze dell’attenzione che anche a Venezia si ebbe nei primissimi anni del Seicento verso nuove forme di sonorizzazione della produzione lirica. Sintomatico risultato del complesso intreccio tra l’orizzonte culturale ed estetico di munifici patroni e la curiosità artistica di diversi compositori operanti a Venezia, esse aggiungono un importante quanto inedito tassello alla ricostruzione dell’ampio e articolato fenomeno che ha riguardato la diffusione di nuovi generi musicali, come la monodia accompagnata e le arie strofiche, e in particolare del ruolo che in questo processo ha avuto il contesto veneziano.
Review:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 55 (2020), p. 297–301 (Maddalena Bonechi).
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Giovanni Gabrieli (1554/56-1612), al vertice della tradizione musicale veneziana avviata da Adria... more Giovanni Gabrieli (1554/56-1612), al vertice della tradizione musicale veneziana avviata da Adriano Willaert, fu con Monteverdi tra i massimi compositori italiani ed europei della fine Cinquecento. Autore di musica sacra per grandi organici policorali, destinata in buona parte al cerimoniale civico-religioso della basilica di San Marco, Gabrieli fu anche l'iniziatore di un repertorio di musica strumentale d'assieme di complessità e dignità artistica pari a quello della migliore musica vocale sacra e profana dell'epoca. Avvalendosi di nuove fonti documentarie e di una accurata ricontestualizzazione delle fonti musicali, il presente volume offre una nuova immagine del compositore, più aderente alla variegata vita musicale veneziana dell'epoca, fornendo al contempo una più chiara comprensione del ruolo rilevante che egli, pur nel rispetto della tradizione policorale marciana, ebbe nell'affermazione del nuovo stile concertato e di tutti quegli stilemi tecnico-espressivi propri della nuova musica del Seicento.
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Knowledge and debate in the field of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Venetian music has ... more Knowledge and debate in the field of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Venetian music has greatly benefitted in recent decades from studies of major institutions, composers, repertories and sources, as also from investigations of the quantitative aspects of musical life in what was one of the largest, richest and most commercially oriented cities on the Italian peninsula: the Venetian musical phenomenon includes, on the one hand, regular or sporadic musical activities in the city’s many churches and private palaces (activities which provided significant earnings for large numbers of musicians, whether or not salaried members of the ducal cappella) and, on the other, the auxiliary trades of music printing and instrument making. The transmission of the musical repertories has also received notable attention: in particular, the contemporary and later reception of Venetian musical repertories in different political, linguistic and/or confessional areas. Central, too, have been questions of ‘sound’, both with regard to the particular interaction between musical composition, the spatial peculiarities and the specific liturgical and ceremonial traditions of the Venetian ducal chapel, and in the context of music-making at large.
This collection of essays on the life, times and works of a composer who ranks among the most outstanding musical personalities of his day variously unites these strands in an albeit partial attempt to interpret Giovanni Gabrieli’s output and activities in their Venetian context and, at the same time, cast light on their broader historiographical significance: on the one hand Gabrieli as point of synthesis of a complex Venetian musical tradition, on the other his interaction with and impact on contemporary musical life, his influence on later generations of composers both at home and abroad, the rediscovery of his achievements by nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians and performers, the revisitations of his music by twentieth-century composers.
Reviews:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 53 (2018), p. 285–291 (Michelangelo Gabbrielli)
– Early Music 46 (2018), p. 167–169 (Eleanor Selfridge-Field); reply: Early Music 46 (2018), p. 367–368
– Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018), p. 776–777 (Tim Shephard)
– Music & Letters 100 (2019), p. 543–546 (Tim Carter)
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Articles and Book Chapters
The paper reconstructs the complex economic and social reality of the two venetian districts of S... more The paper reconstructs the complex economic and social reality of the two venetian districts of San Salvador and San Zulian within which snaked the "Merzarie" [Mercerie], the main commercial street of Venice where the Gardano, the most important music publishers of the second half of the sixteenth century, had established his own "library" and printing house at the banner of the “Bear and Lion.”
Below, in a path that gradually degrades from the immateriality of the music to the materiality of socio-economic relations, the paper analyzes, trying to understand its meaning, the complex and seemingly contradictory relations system tied by the two Gardano brothers, Angelo and Matteo.
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L'articolo prende in esame lo stato della musica veneziana delle prime tre decadi del Seicento, r... more L'articolo prende in esame lo stato della musica veneziana delle prime tre decadi del Seicento, rilevando come, sulla base di nuove evidenze verbali e musicali, sia possibile affermare che la diffusione delle nuove pratiche a voce sola accompagnata e, in generale, della musica concertata a 1, 2, 3 voci e continuo si verificò assai più precocemente e rapidamente di quanto normalmente asserito nella letteratura musicologica. Vettore principale delle nuove prassi fu il mecenatismo privato che a Venezia assunse la forma di un fenomeno diffuso e trasversale, animato da soggetti appartenenti non solo al patriziato, ma anche al ceto cittadinesco e all'ampia e articolata classe dei popolari. Dopo un inquadramento generale di questo fenomeno e della connessa pratica dei ridotti (una sorta di salotti musicali dell'epoca), illustrato mediante un cospicuo corpus di dati (pubblicati in appendice) frutto di una ricerca innovativa sotto il profilo metodologico, l'articolo apre la lente su una peculiare impresa mecenatesca: l'apertura, da parte di un'illuminata famiglia di ceto cittadinesco, di un «teatro» fatto appositamente per l'esecuzione della musica da camera. Partendo da una riflessione sulla qualità delle musiche eseguite in questa sede e sulle caratteristiche di una delle prime raccolte locali di musiche a voce sola, Orfeo, apparsa per i tipi di Bartolomeo Magni nel 1613, l'articolo prosegue illustrando le diverse forme (dall'aria strofica alla lettera amorosa in stile recitativo) con cui il germe della nuova musica concertata si diffuse in laguna nei due decenni successivi.
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Making use of new sources, the article focuses on the figure, hitherto shrouded in mystery, of th... more Making use of new sources, the article focuses on the figure, hitherto shrouded in mystery, of the the legendary Venetian composer-instrumentalist Dario Castello reconstructing the salient features of his short life and the complex historical-musical context in which he formed and worked. Born in 1602, Dario learned from his father Giovanni Battista, a violin player also practicing the art of "stracciarolo", which was very well inserted in the evolved environment of Venetian instrumentalism, the finest instrumental techniques; techniques constituting an important part of the musical knowledge that Dario infused in his remarkable concerted Sonatas. At the same time as his father's teachings, Dario, however, was also initiated into an ecclesiastical career, a path that allowed him to deepen his musical studies and to enter into relationships with patrons who supported his activity and fostered his contact with the best Venetian compositional tradition, of which Giovanni Gabrieli (who died in 1612) had been the most authoritative exponent. It is exactly from the synthesis of this dual knowledge, the performative and the exquisitely compositional one, that derives the peculiar quality of his Sonate concertate in stil moderno, compositions that, on the one hand, capture the hearing for their pyrotechnic instrumental resources and their acute sectional contrasts, on the other, they amaze for their solid musical substance and their calculated formal construction.
Avvalendosi di nuove fonti, l'articolo mette a fuoco la figura, fin qui avvolta nel mistero, del mitico compositore-strumentista veneziano Dario Castello ricostruendone i tratti salienti della breve vita e il complesso contesto storico-musicale in cui si formò e operò. Nato nel 1602, Dario apprese dal padre Giovanni Battista, un suonatore di violino esercitante anche l'arte dello «stracciarolo», il quale era assai ben inserito nell'evoluto ambiente dello strumentalismo veneziano, le più raffinate tecniche strumentali; tecniche costituenti una parte importante, dei saperi musicali che Dario infuse nelle sue notevoli Sonate concertate. Contestualmente agli insegnamenti paterni, Dario, tuttavia, venne anche avviato alla carriera ecclesiastica, un percorso che gli consentì di approfondire gli studi musicali e di entrare in relazione con mecenati che ne appoggiarono l'attività e favorirono il contatto con la migliore tradizione compositiva veneziana, di cui Giovanni Gabrieli (scomparso nel 1612) era stato il più autorevole esponente. E' esattamente dalla sintesi di questo duplice sapere, quello performativo e quello squisitamente compositivo che deriva la peculiare qualità delle sue Sonate Concertate in stil moderno, composizioni che, se da un lato, catturano l'udienza per le loro pirotecniche risorse strumentali e i loro acuti contrasti sezionali, dall'altro stupiscono per la loro solida sostanza musicale e la loro calcolata costruzione formale.
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Abstract
There is a pressing need to document Monteverdi’s Venetian period (1613–43) in greater ... more Abstract
There is a pressing need to document Monteverdi’s Venetian period (1613–43) in greater depth. This task has long been impeded, however, by our haphazard grasp of the specific complexities of Venetian socio-cultural and musical contexts. By looking beyond St Mark's Basilica, the present article uncovers brief archival records often overlooked by music historians. These new documents may not add much to the known facts of Monteverdi’s biography, but they do cast significant new light on the vast network of social relationships that Monteverdi developed during his Venetian years with fellow musicians and with higher-ranked patrons, not least in secular spheres and in the world of early ‘public’ opera.
Key words:
Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Farina, Alessandro Grandi, Bartolomeo Barbarino, Giovanni Matteo Bembo, comparaggio, ridotti, godfather, baptism, Giovan Battista Manelli, opera, Venice
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Gabrieli’s influence on the younger generations of musicians in Venice and the Italian peninsula,... more Gabrieli’s influence on the younger generations of musicians in Venice and the Italian peninsula, little studied in comparison with his legacy in northern Europe, is here discussed on the basis of contemporary assessments of his reputation and prestige, and tangible traces of his musical output in the works of younger composers. A total of 96 citations and paraphrases of sacred, secular and instrumental compositions by Gabrieli are identified in the surviving production of 34 authors. Stylistic characteristics and structural procedures are also analysed (though with caution, given the widespread dissemination of clichés in the context of the vast and indeterminate area of casual intertextuality). This new perspective demonstrates the importance of Gabrieli’s legacy in his native lands.
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Musical life in Venice between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: musicians, patrons and r... more Musical life in Venice between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: musicians, patrons and repertoires
The musical life in Venice between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century offers a rather more complex and articulate picture than the one which has generally been presented to us up to now by the albeit rich historiography on the subject. If it is true, that lately, the attention traditionally focused on the Basilica of san Marco, seen as the one and only truly important centre of Venetian musical life, has been rightly surpassed by a more 'contextual' vision which is more attentive towards a certain 'periphery', which has been identified in the world of the collective patronage, activated by the numerous ecclesiastical (conventual and parish churches), devotional (Scuole Grandi and Scuole Piccole) and charitable (Ospedali Maggiori) institutions and which perhaps represents one of the most particular characteristics of the lagoon musical activity, it can however, also be said that the picture is far from being complete. Indeed, the Venice of private ridotti and academies, in other words, that of private patronage, remains as yet unexplored but which, on a first examination, does prove itself to be just as rich and articulate as the survey of ecclesiastical and devotional institutions. This context of private patronage reveals itself as being essential in understanding not only the presence and activity in the lagoon territory of a truly impressive number of musical professions (singers, players, makers of every kind of musical instrument and “dancers”), but also in understanding the intrinsic mechanisms of that very same collective patronage which was in fact so closely connected and intertwined with that of the private patronage. Indeed, there is not a single Venetian musician who did not establish multiple and long-lasting patronly relations with illustrious members of the patricianship and with the emergent and wealthy cittadine class. And there are indeed, some very emblematic cases of organist-composers, authors mostly of ecclesiastical music, such as Giovan Battista Riccio, who apparently lived without occupying a stable position in any important conventual church whatsoever but solely by means of the assistance of private patronage.
Finally, it is necessary to recall how that, in the first instance, it is in the ridotti rather than in the conservative context of the Basilica of san Marco where some of the most musically advanced and innovative aspects are experimented. The fashion for accompanied monody and the new style of concerted music for two or three voices and continuo were widely cultivated and diffused in the circle of the private ridotti as is well illustrated by the works, emblematic of the lagoon enthusiasm for new expressive practices, of Bartolomeo Barbarino, the first true monodist to settle in the lagoon and who was largely provided for and supported by the Milani family (an influential cittadine family, member of the Scuola Grande of san Rocco and particularly active in the field of musical patronage) and various other cittadine families and patricians (the Giunti family at san Stae, the Michiel family at santa Maria Formosa, the Grimani family at san Marcuola and the Giustinian family).
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The composer, in Alessandro Grandi, Il quarto libro de motetti a due, tre quattro, et sette voci (1616), edidunt D. Collins & R. Kendrick in Opera Omnia, edited by J. Kurtzman (gen. ed.), D. Collins, R. Kendrick, S. Saunders, J. Whenham, CMM, 112-5, 2015, pp. XI-XXXIV. The essay, written in collaboration with Steven Saunders (author of the biography of Grandi appea... more The essay, written in collaboration with Steven Saunders (author of the biography of Grandi appeared in the first volume of the Opera Omnia), reconstructs, overcoming the gaps and misunderstandings present in the earlier literature, the social and musical context within which the composer worked in Venice and Ferrara. The discovery of the date of birth, the family origin and the whole Venetian musical training are the first part of the article. The second part reconstructs the Ferrara period (1610-17) of the composer with a constant reference to his patrons and the institutions in which he worked. The third and final part concerns the return of the composer in Venice, his service in the Basilica of San Marco and, above all, the support of individual patrons of which could benefit to revive his career in the lagoon.
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Books
Review:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 55 (2020), p. 297–301 (Maddalena Bonechi).
Books as Editor
This collection of essays on the life, times and works of a composer who ranks among the most outstanding musical personalities of his day variously unites these strands in an albeit partial attempt to interpret Giovanni Gabrieli’s output and activities in their Venetian context and, at the same time, cast light on their broader historiographical significance: on the one hand Gabrieli as point of synthesis of a complex Venetian musical tradition, on the other his interaction with and impact on contemporary musical life, his influence on later generations of composers both at home and abroad, the rediscovery of his achievements by nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians and performers, the revisitations of his music by twentieth-century composers.
Reviews:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 53 (2018), p. 285–291 (Michelangelo Gabbrielli)
– Early Music 46 (2018), p. 167–169 (Eleanor Selfridge-Field); reply: Early Music 46 (2018), p. 367–368
– Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018), p. 776–777 (Tim Shephard)
– Music & Letters 100 (2019), p. 543–546 (Tim Carter)
Articles and Book Chapters
Below, in a path that gradually degrades from the immateriality of the music to the materiality of socio-economic relations, the paper analyzes, trying to understand its meaning, the complex and seemingly contradictory relations system tied by the two Gardano brothers, Angelo and Matteo.
Avvalendosi di nuove fonti, l'articolo mette a fuoco la figura, fin qui avvolta nel mistero, del mitico compositore-strumentista veneziano Dario Castello ricostruendone i tratti salienti della breve vita e il complesso contesto storico-musicale in cui si formò e operò. Nato nel 1602, Dario apprese dal padre Giovanni Battista, un suonatore di violino esercitante anche l'arte dello «stracciarolo», il quale era assai ben inserito nell'evoluto ambiente dello strumentalismo veneziano, le più raffinate tecniche strumentali; tecniche costituenti una parte importante, dei saperi musicali che Dario infuse nelle sue notevoli Sonate concertate. Contestualmente agli insegnamenti paterni, Dario, tuttavia, venne anche avviato alla carriera ecclesiastica, un percorso che gli consentì di approfondire gli studi musicali e di entrare in relazione con mecenati che ne appoggiarono l'attività e favorirono il contatto con la migliore tradizione compositiva veneziana, di cui Giovanni Gabrieli (scomparso nel 1612) era stato il più autorevole esponente. E' esattamente dalla sintesi di questo duplice sapere, quello performativo e quello squisitamente compositivo che deriva la peculiare qualità delle sue Sonate Concertate in stil moderno, composizioni che, se da un lato, catturano l'udienza per le loro pirotecniche risorse strumentali e i loro acuti contrasti sezionali, dall'altro stupiscono per la loro solida sostanza musicale e la loro calcolata costruzione formale.
There is a pressing need to document Monteverdi’s Venetian period (1613–43) in greater depth. This task has long been impeded, however, by our haphazard grasp of the specific complexities of Venetian socio-cultural and musical contexts. By looking beyond St Mark's Basilica, the present article uncovers brief archival records often overlooked by music historians. These new documents may not add much to the known facts of Monteverdi’s biography, but they do cast significant new light on the vast network of social relationships that Monteverdi developed during his Venetian years with fellow musicians and with higher-ranked patrons, not least in secular spheres and in the world of early ‘public’ opera.
Key words:
Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Farina, Alessandro Grandi, Bartolomeo Barbarino, Giovanni Matteo Bembo, comparaggio, ridotti, godfather, baptism, Giovan Battista Manelli, opera, Venice
The musical life in Venice between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century offers a rather more complex and articulate picture than the one which has generally been presented to us up to now by the albeit rich historiography on the subject. If it is true, that lately, the attention traditionally focused on the Basilica of san Marco, seen as the one and only truly important centre of Venetian musical life, has been rightly surpassed by a more 'contextual' vision which is more attentive towards a certain 'periphery', which has been identified in the world of the collective patronage, activated by the numerous ecclesiastical (conventual and parish churches), devotional (Scuole Grandi and Scuole Piccole) and charitable (Ospedali Maggiori) institutions and which perhaps represents one of the most particular characteristics of the lagoon musical activity, it can however, also be said that the picture is far from being complete. Indeed, the Venice of private ridotti and academies, in other words, that of private patronage, remains as yet unexplored but which, on a first examination, does prove itself to be just as rich and articulate as the survey of ecclesiastical and devotional institutions. This context of private patronage reveals itself as being essential in understanding not only the presence and activity in the lagoon territory of a truly impressive number of musical professions (singers, players, makers of every kind of musical instrument and “dancers”), but also in understanding the intrinsic mechanisms of that very same collective patronage which was in fact so closely connected and intertwined with that of the private patronage. Indeed, there is not a single Venetian musician who did not establish multiple and long-lasting patronly relations with illustrious members of the patricianship and with the emergent and wealthy cittadine class. And there are indeed, some very emblematic cases of organist-composers, authors mostly of ecclesiastical music, such as Giovan Battista Riccio, who apparently lived without occupying a stable position in any important conventual church whatsoever but solely by means of the assistance of private patronage.
Finally, it is necessary to recall how that, in the first instance, it is in the ridotti rather than in the conservative context of the Basilica of san Marco where some of the most musically advanced and innovative aspects are experimented. The fashion for accompanied monody and the new style of concerted music for two or three voices and continuo were widely cultivated and diffused in the circle of the private ridotti as is well illustrated by the works, emblematic of the lagoon enthusiasm for new expressive practices, of Bartolomeo Barbarino, the first true monodist to settle in the lagoon and who was largely provided for and supported by the Milani family (an influential cittadine family, member of the Scuola Grande of san Rocco and particularly active in the field of musical patronage) and various other cittadine families and patricians (the Giunti family at san Stae, the Michiel family at santa Maria Formosa, the Grimani family at san Marcuola and the Giustinian family).
Review:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 55 (2020), p. 297–301 (Maddalena Bonechi).
This collection of essays on the life, times and works of a composer who ranks among the most outstanding musical personalities of his day variously unites these strands in an albeit partial attempt to interpret Giovanni Gabrieli’s output and activities in their Venetian context and, at the same time, cast light on their broader historiographical significance: on the one hand Gabrieli as point of synthesis of a complex Venetian musical tradition, on the other his interaction with and impact on contemporary musical life, his influence on later generations of composers both at home and abroad, the rediscovery of his achievements by nineteenth- and twentieth-century historians and performers, the revisitations of his music by twentieth-century composers.
Reviews:
– Rivista Italiana di Musicologia 53 (2018), p. 285–291 (Michelangelo Gabbrielli)
– Early Music 46 (2018), p. 167–169 (Eleanor Selfridge-Field); reply: Early Music 46 (2018), p. 367–368
– Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018), p. 776–777 (Tim Shephard)
– Music & Letters 100 (2019), p. 543–546 (Tim Carter)
Below, in a path that gradually degrades from the immateriality of the music to the materiality of socio-economic relations, the paper analyzes, trying to understand its meaning, the complex and seemingly contradictory relations system tied by the two Gardano brothers, Angelo and Matteo.
Avvalendosi di nuove fonti, l'articolo mette a fuoco la figura, fin qui avvolta nel mistero, del mitico compositore-strumentista veneziano Dario Castello ricostruendone i tratti salienti della breve vita e il complesso contesto storico-musicale in cui si formò e operò. Nato nel 1602, Dario apprese dal padre Giovanni Battista, un suonatore di violino esercitante anche l'arte dello «stracciarolo», il quale era assai ben inserito nell'evoluto ambiente dello strumentalismo veneziano, le più raffinate tecniche strumentali; tecniche costituenti una parte importante, dei saperi musicali che Dario infuse nelle sue notevoli Sonate concertate. Contestualmente agli insegnamenti paterni, Dario, tuttavia, venne anche avviato alla carriera ecclesiastica, un percorso che gli consentì di approfondire gli studi musicali e di entrare in relazione con mecenati che ne appoggiarono l'attività e favorirono il contatto con la migliore tradizione compositiva veneziana, di cui Giovanni Gabrieli (scomparso nel 1612) era stato il più autorevole esponente. E' esattamente dalla sintesi di questo duplice sapere, quello performativo e quello squisitamente compositivo che deriva la peculiare qualità delle sue Sonate Concertate in stil moderno, composizioni che, se da un lato, catturano l'udienza per le loro pirotecniche risorse strumentali e i loro acuti contrasti sezionali, dall'altro stupiscono per la loro solida sostanza musicale e la loro calcolata costruzione formale.
There is a pressing need to document Monteverdi’s Venetian period (1613–43) in greater depth. This task has long been impeded, however, by our haphazard grasp of the specific complexities of Venetian socio-cultural and musical contexts. By looking beyond St Mark's Basilica, the present article uncovers brief archival records often overlooked by music historians. These new documents may not add much to the known facts of Monteverdi’s biography, but they do cast significant new light on the vast network of social relationships that Monteverdi developed during his Venetian years with fellow musicians and with higher-ranked patrons, not least in secular spheres and in the world of early ‘public’ opera.
Key words:
Claudio Monteverdi, Carlo Farina, Alessandro Grandi, Bartolomeo Barbarino, Giovanni Matteo Bembo, comparaggio, ridotti, godfather, baptism, Giovan Battista Manelli, opera, Venice
The musical life in Venice between the end of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth century offers a rather more complex and articulate picture than the one which has generally been presented to us up to now by the albeit rich historiography on the subject. If it is true, that lately, the attention traditionally focused on the Basilica of san Marco, seen as the one and only truly important centre of Venetian musical life, has been rightly surpassed by a more 'contextual' vision which is more attentive towards a certain 'periphery', which has been identified in the world of the collective patronage, activated by the numerous ecclesiastical (conventual and parish churches), devotional (Scuole Grandi and Scuole Piccole) and charitable (Ospedali Maggiori) institutions and which perhaps represents one of the most particular characteristics of the lagoon musical activity, it can however, also be said that the picture is far from being complete. Indeed, the Venice of private ridotti and academies, in other words, that of private patronage, remains as yet unexplored but which, on a first examination, does prove itself to be just as rich and articulate as the survey of ecclesiastical and devotional institutions. This context of private patronage reveals itself as being essential in understanding not only the presence and activity in the lagoon territory of a truly impressive number of musical professions (singers, players, makers of every kind of musical instrument and “dancers”), but also in understanding the intrinsic mechanisms of that very same collective patronage which was in fact so closely connected and intertwined with that of the private patronage. Indeed, there is not a single Venetian musician who did not establish multiple and long-lasting patronly relations with illustrious members of the patricianship and with the emergent and wealthy cittadine class. And there are indeed, some very emblematic cases of organist-composers, authors mostly of ecclesiastical music, such as Giovan Battista Riccio, who apparently lived without occupying a stable position in any important conventual church whatsoever but solely by means of the assistance of private patronage.
Finally, it is necessary to recall how that, in the first instance, it is in the ridotti rather than in the conservative context of the Basilica of san Marco where some of the most musically advanced and innovative aspects are experimented. The fashion for accompanied monody and the new style of concerted music for two or three voices and continuo were widely cultivated and diffused in the circle of the private ridotti as is well illustrated by the works, emblematic of the lagoon enthusiasm for new expressive practices, of Bartolomeo Barbarino, the first true monodist to settle in the lagoon and who was largely provided for and supported by the Milani family (an influential cittadine family, member of the Scuola Grande of san Rocco and particularly active in the field of musical patronage) and various other cittadine families and patricians (the Giunti family at san Stae, the Michiel family at santa Maria Formosa, the Grimani family at san Marcuola and the Giustinian family).
The seminar is divided into two parts: a series of morning lectures and practical afternoon sessions in relevant institutions in the city (Archivio di Stato, Archivio Storico del Patriarcato and Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana). Access to the morning lectures is open to anyone interested, whereas the full seminar is limited to a maximum of twenty enrolled people. Moreover Fondazione Giorgio Cini is to make available ten scholarships to cover accommodation expenses for the duration of the seminar.
The advisory committee is made up of Rodolfo Baroncini (coordinator), David Bryant, Paolo Cecchi, Luigi Collarile and Marco Di Pasquale, while the seminar teachers, in addition to those just mentioned, are Claudio Annibaldi, Tim Carter, Mario Infelise, Paola Lanaro, Ellen Rosand and John Whenham.
In Venice, this process was not without consequences for the formation of the younger generation of musicians (Venetian and non-Venetian). In the footsteps of his uncle, Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni had established what was nothing short of a school (with price lists and programmes), populated by a considerable number of young musicians from all over Europe. Gabrieli’s infl uence on his Northern pupils has been partially investigated; less clear and certainly more problematic is his contribution to the formation of a local compositional tradition.
Leaving aside Gabrieli’s unquestionable importance as composer and innovator in the fi eld of instrumental music, the situation is rendered particularly complex by the arrival in Venice of Claudio Monteverdi in 1613. Frequently music historiography has assigned to Monteverdi prime responsability for the processes of innovation characteristic of subsequent Venetian music.
These study sessions aim to shed light on the extent and nature of Gabrieli’s legacy in the hands of his various pupils and followers (G.B. Riccio, G.B. Grillo, G. Priuli, G. Valentini etc.) both in Venice and elsewhere, with reference both to instrumental music and to the sacred and secular vocal repertoires during the fi rst three decades of the seventeenth century. Discussion of Alessandro Grandi’s role in the artistic production of the new generation of composers can be of particular importance in this context.
Other themes regard: Gabrieli and contemporary music publishing; Gabrieli, the madrigal and private patronage in Venice.
See:
Rodolfo Baroncini, David Bryant, Luigi Collarile (eds), Giovanni Gabrieli. Transmission and Reception of a Venetian Musical Tradition. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016 (Venetian Music Studies, 1)
https://www.academia.edu/26871981/Giovanni_Gabrieli._Transmission_and_Reception_of_a_Venetian_Musical_Tradition._Turnhout_Brepols_2016_Venetian_Music_Studies_1_