Baroque Violin

This contribution represents a chapter in the volume "Sozialgeschichte der Musik des Barock", the sixth part of the "Handbuch der Musik des Barock", and deals with the status and function of bowed and plucked instruments in the Baroque period. During this era, musical instruments were generally closely linked to a specific social class. Although the same type of instrument may have sometimes been present among different social strata, its building technique varied substantially. I illustrate this by considering the following division: lower classes (beggars, marginalized groups, minstrels and village musicians), middle classes (civic and court musicians and amateurs) and upper classes (virtuosos and aristocrats). During the Baroque period, certain instruments also triggered social mobility: the violin, for instance, enabled the best players to generate considerable wealth as well as a title of nobility, whereas the viola da gamba gradually disappeared among professional musicians. In order to observe these musical-social strata and their potential crossings, we must attend to the specificities of region and gender dynamics.

- Facsimile of the 12 sonatas in ms. 177 (Biblioteca del Sacro Convento di S. Francesco)
-Musicological introduction by Guido Olivieri
- Critical notes by Enrico Gatti
- Critical edition in a separate file, suitable for performance
Texts both in Italian and English

The c.1720 manuscript by Pedro Lopes Nogueira (c.1700-?), which is part of the collection of the National Library of Portugal since at least 1948, brings to the fore one of the most fascinating violin tutorials written during the European Baroque, because it combines violin pedagogy with the provision of a varied concert repertoire with different levels of difficulty. Amongst the very well preserved 244 pages of the Casta de Lições that form the manuscript, there are lessons, preludes, fantasias, cadences, arpeggios and filhotas (Portuguese folk pieces with scordatura without accompaniment) and a Gaita de Folle. The first 13 lessons, which occupy pages 3-26 of the manuscript, can be considered a set of partimenti, that is, a two-part score (melody + figured bass) with the theoretical-pedagogical purpose of training more skillful and learned musicians (Gjerdingen, 2000). Although the still little known author warns that his lessons are "... for studies on the Rabeca...", these small pieces also attract attention because by they add valuable chamber music to the repertoire from the Portuguese Baroque period. From the musicological point of view, studies on these lessons can contribute to the paradigm shift in which Portuguese music is seen as a minor output, when compared to the predominant European models. The present study aims at presenting initial notes to make the 13 Partimenti by Pedro Lopes Nogueira available through the elaboration of performance editions. The editorial approach proposed combines the preservation of the original notation in the manuscript with interferences from performance practices and musical analysis between brackets (Borém, 2015). While preserving the qualities of practical editions (Figueiredo, 2000, 2004), this proposal aims at providing a more informed alternative for their performance by musicians who are not very familiar with HIP. The wide variety of compositional procedures by Nogueira in these partimenti requires the discussion of several editorial procedures. An initial categorization of its content reveals notational problems that include the occurrence of (A) wrong notes, metrics, and figures (stem problems, over and under-written rhythms, pitch errors); (B) inconsistencies of articulations and accidents; (C) absence of tempo indications (Lesson 9 suggests an Allegro), character (Lesson 10 suggests gallant and Mozartean elements), dynamics and fingerings (D); improvisation and (E) incomplete staffs that require restoration. In addition to these more general questions, there are also notational questions that arise from an analysis of the idiomatic writing for the violin, such as the performance of ornaments, the performance of chord sequences in double, triple and quadruple chords, the use of open strings and harmonics, the choice of fingering in 2 and 3-voice textures, the use of bariolage versus ondulé, the emphasis on voice leading in free and fugal imitative writing. The choice of tonalities or the scheme of its harmonic sequence may reveal didactic aspects in the teaching of the instrument. In the performance editions it will be considered the realization of the 13 Partimenti by Nogueira with characteristics of the Baroque violin with gut strings and the Baroque bow with its peculiarities of timbre, dynamics and articulation.

Introduction

The present edition offers an arrangement for Recorder of the Trio for Flauto Trav., Violino & Basso Wq. 143 by CPE Bach (1714-1788). As is customary in such adaptations, with the transposition of a minor 3nd up, from B minor to D minor.
The Trio Wq. 143 is one of the earliest surviving works by the second-born son of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) The author’s post-mortem catalogue -NV 1790- refers to this work as having been composed in Leipzig in 1731 and revised in Berlin in 1747.
Thus, this Trio underwent at least three validations:
1.- At the time of its composition itself, since CPE Bach was 17 years old and, quite plausibly, the work was tutored by his father.
2.-The aforementioned Berlin revision of 1747.
3.- And finally a later selection, made in 1772, in which CPE discarded a large number of his earliest compositions as "too juvenile". In fact the date ‘1731’ corresponds to the first works to be spared from destruction.
We do not preserve the original version but only the 1747 revision. Fortunately, we have a complete set of Full Score and Parts belonging to the composer's "House Library". A source divided after the inheritance and now located in two institutions: The full score in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin (D-B, Mus. ms. Bach P 357, pp. 1-4); and the parts in Brussels, in the Bibliothèque du Conservatoire Royal de Musique, (B-Bc, 27904 MSM).
As a musician at the court of Frederick the Great, CPE Bach composed a large number of works featuring the transverse flute. But these future events leave it unexplained why the young CPE, still pupil of Johann Sebastian, composed so much music for the Traverso. The Trio Wq 143 is the first of a group of six triosonatas for Flauto Trav., Violino & Basso; five of them composed in Leipzig in the aforementioned 1731 (Wq 143-147), and a sixth composed in Frankfurt in 1735 (Wq 148). All of them published by Christoph Wolff in 2011 in the CPE Bach  Complete Works, Series II, Vol. 2.1. A volume including a detailed Introduction and Critical Apparatus; available at cpebach.org .
Although the transverse flute was increasingly popular in contemporary Europe, it is striking that other woodwind instruments, notably the oboe, the oboe d'amore or the recorder, which were widely played in Leipzig during these years, are conspicuously absent from this repertoire of youthful trios by CPE Bach.
It cannot be assured with certainty, since the early versions were destroyed, but it seems to be ruled out that the Trio Wq 143 was composed for oboe, given that bars 53, 62 and 154 include several essential d#' in the Traverso part, apparently impracticable as c#' in the transposed Oboe. It cannot be ruled out, on the other hand, that the original 1731 version was in D minor for Treble Recorder, since the Violino writing is extremely low in many passages of the 1747 revision, particularly in the first movement. It is possible that only this opening movement was present in the original version from 1731 (An early version of Wq 145, the BWV 1036, shows changes on the movements).
In any case, this present arrangement for Recorder serves as an addition to the interesting genre of the Trio for Recorder, Violino & Basso in the milieu of the Bach family and other Germanic composers.
Regarding the authorship of the Trio Wq 143, although it is true that the work has stylistic features very close to the language of Johann Sebastian –see for example the Trio for Organ in D minor BWV 583–, on the other hand, an annotation in the Catalogue NV 1790, p. 65 seems to rule out this co-authorship. When speaking of the Trio für die Violine, Viola und Bass (lost), he refers to it as "mit Johann Sebastian Bach gemeinschaftlich verfertigt", "made in collaboration with Johann Sebastian Bach". This specification leads to the assumption that Trios Wq 143-148 were, on the contrary, mostly composed by CPE.

Performance

A special feature of the nearly half a hundred Trios collected in the CPE Bach House Library is that the preserved particellas often describe two performance formulas: as a Trio for 3 or 4 players (two treble instruments & basso continuo), or as Sonata for two players, the "Klavier Trio" (treble instrument & obbligato keyboard). These keyboard parts include the Flauto &  Basso lines (with figures for the Basso only at the moments when the treble is silent). CPE notes that another particella can also be written with the Violino & Basso lines, to enable a performance à 2 for flute and keyboard.
The present edition of the Trio Wq 143 therefore allows it to be performed as a Sonata for Recorder and Obbligato Keyboard (Cembalo, Organo or Fortepiano).

The subject-matter of the work is a seventeenth-century Italian sonata for a violin solo and continuo, its form and the technique. For the needs of the work, all known and preserved old prints and manuscripts with the Italian violin sonatas of the discussed period have been analysed (altogether there are 220 compositions of thirty composers’ authorship, see: Wykaz I [Index I] and Aneks A [Appendix A]). Classified as Italian were the works of the Italian composers writing in Italy and at the Italianised European courts. The time frame chosen begins in 1617 with the first in history edition of solo sonatas from Biagio Marini’s Affetti musicali, Op. 1, and ends with the manuscript collection of Carlo Ambrogio Lonati, which was dated to the January of 1701, though, finding its concordances in the copies of Colombi from before 1694.

Una traducción al castellano del tratado de F. Geminiani: The art of playing on the violin.  "Contiene todas las reglas necesarias para alcanzar la perfección en dicho instrumento, con gran variedad de composiciones, las cuales serán también muy útiles a los que estudien el violoncelo, el clavecín etc."  Publicado en Londres en 1751.  La traducción no incluye un aparato crítico ni comentarios, pretende tan solo ser un documento de apoyo en la observación o interpretación de la música antigua, más específicamente de música instrumental del barroco tardío.

The house of Mario Maggi, violin teacher at the School of Violin Making in Cremona, welcomes an important correspondence and an extraordinary collection of musical instruments. The teacher collaborated, since the years of the war for the entire second half of the '900, to the collection of ancient documents and reproductions, reconstructions of musical instruments of Baroque and Renaissance. His is the discovery of the fundamental similarities between the paintings of the early '500 (period of the birth of Andrea Amati) attributed to Campi or Altobello Melone in San'Abbondio and St. Maria Maddalena. 4-string instruments with peaks can be related to the "violets Lanfranco" or with  geigen of Virdung and Agricola and appear as violins archaic precursors of the Renaissance violin.

This article is a translation of a study originally published in Dutch:
Wim RAYMAEKERS, De vormkenmerken van de instrumenten der vioolfamilie in de 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse schilderkunst, in Musica antiqua. Actuele informatie over oude muziek, 6, 3, 1989, p.98-105. This text is still relevant and innovative, since it widens our knowledge of archaic violins in the same way the “rediscovery” of the Alemannic school and the Freiberger violins did.
Whatever the meaning, the hidden symbolic messages or the iconographic theme of representations from the Golden Age may be, the elements with which they are composed are often so realistic that they can be studied in detail. This certainly applies to the illustrations of the instruments of the violin family. In addition to the fact that they play a remarkable role in the iconography of that time , they offer, due to their large number and their quality as a document, the possibility to study the visual characteristics of the seventeenth century violin in the Netherlands. They allow us to follow their evolution starting as early as 1620, despite the fact that no extant organological material concerning this material has come to us from well past the middle of the century. This unclarified period between about 1620 and 1660/1670 appears to be a pivotal era, because it is precisely then that the transition from "archaic" to "modern" stylistic features can be observed in Dutch iconography.

While I was extensively studying the forgotten lutherie style represented in many Dutch paintings from the era between 1620 and 1640, the plan arose to make a reconstruction, not only on paper but also for real. The result is now part of the permanent exhibition in the "Museum Vleeshuis" in Antwerp to illustrate the kind of violins used by minstrels in the16th and 17th century cities of the Low Countries.

It is assumed that the bow model designed by Francois Xavier Tourte has been generally accepted as soon as it appeared. Recent research established that especially in those countries where the revolutionary French school of violin playing with Viotti, Rode and Kreutzer as their exponents was not widespread, the Tourte bow was slow to be adopted by the musicians. Instead, a late form of the classical 'Cramer bow' was in use until well into the 1830ies that may be called 'Biedermeier bow'.

The Schrank II (Cabinet II) collection from the Die Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden (SLUB) is not only one of the most interesting archives open to the worldwide audience thanks to the new technologies but also one of the major archives of Vivaldi's instrumental music.
Although the archive had been digitized and studied there are more than 60 sonatas for violin and continuo, around 12 string trio sonatas and most than 50 concertos remaining anonymous.

A Sonata for violin and continuo, a Trio Sonata for violin, violoncello and continuo and a Concerto for violin and orchestra captured my attention due its similarities with Vivaldi.

Through the analysis of the external features of the sources (paper, watermarks, copyist, etc.) and the analysis of the style and language of Vivaldi and its characteristics, the final goal of this work is to highlight the possibility Vivaldi an authorship as much as possible. In other words, attempting to put together the strongest proofs and facts that can be used to point to Vivaldi as author of the analyzed pieces. In the light of the results of the present research the Vivaldian attribution is very consistent.

La primera parte está dedicada a la historia inicial del violín, es decir a la historia anterior a la constitución como tal de ese instrumento. La presencia de esa parte en mi trabajo se explica porque considero preciso ubicar a Stradivari como un eslabón, por cierto fundamental, en la gran cadena que constituye la evolución de los instrumentos de cuerdas* y arco* en Occidente.
La segunda parte pretende dar un panorama general de la época de Antonio Stradivari. En ella se habla tanto de historia como de arte. Algunos capítulos de esa sección dan comienzo en el año 1500 y otros en el 1600, dependiendo de la importancia de cada caso en función del tema central. Aun cuando Stradivari nace a mediados del siglo XVII, he querido iniciar esta parte antes de ese momento para establecer las
bases, sobre todo histórico-políticas, que hicieron posible el mundo de ese gran laudero.
La tercera parte está enfocada a la historia del violín, ya propiamente dicho, y de la laudería clásica italiana. Para muchos, el periodo de la laudería clásica italiana está
comprendido entre c1600 y 1750. Yo me permití ubicarlo entre 1539 y 1762, es decir entre la fecha del establecimiento de Andrea Amati en Cremona y la muerte de Pietro Guarneri de Venecia. Pero para los propósitos de la presente investigación, en la que se intenta expresar sólo los acontecimientos que pudieron haber influido en el devenir de la obra de Antonio Stradivari, esta parte se ve concluida en 1737, año de la muerte de nuestro laudero. También en esta sección se presenta un panorama general de la laudería que se hacía fuera de Italia en los tiempos de Stradivari.
La cuarta parte está dedicada a hacer un recuento biográfico de Antonio Stradivari y la quinta a la exposición de su obra. A pesar de todo lo que se ha escrito sobre ese gran liutaio, aún queda mucho por investigar, principalmente en lo relativo a
ciertos aspectos de su vida, como puede ser la fecha de su nacimiento, por ejemplo.
Una investigación que intentara arrojar datos no publicados sobre la vida de ese maestro cremonés debería estar basada principalmente en documentos de archivo, tanto de Cremona como de otras ciudades europeas, y ése no es obviamente el caso de esta tesis.
En la sexta parte, la de las conclusiones, se intenta analizar de manera resumida cuáles fueron las condiciones que favorecieron la obra de Antonio Stradivari, en el campo de la historia del violín, de la historia del periodo (política, económica y cultural), del entorno geográfico de Cremona, del ambiente musical, de la historia de la laudería de esa época, así como de la historia personal de Stradivarius y de sus cualidades como laudero.
Por último, este trabajo cuenta con tres apéndices, sobre el devenir de la figura de Stradivari después de su muerte, sobre nomenclaturas de las partes del violín que utilizaba ese maestro laudero y sobre los acontecimientos más importantes de la época de Stradivarius (tanto en el plano histórico-político como en el de la cultura, expresados en un cuadro sinóptico). También aparece al final un glosario de las partes de instrumentos que son mencionadas en esta tesis.

This is a scholarly article, but at the same time a plea for an urgent rewrite of the early history of the violin, this time unhampered by prejudice and entrenched ideas. To me, this is symbolic of the world we are now fighting for: a world where truth is sought in freedom, especially when it is threatened by arguments of authority and ingrained norms.

In the Baroque era, the violino piccolo was the highest and smallest member of the violin family. Claudio Monteverdi wrote for the instrument in his L’Orfeo (1607), and Michael Praetorius mentioned it in his Syntagma musicum (1619). Surviving piccolo violins include one by Girolamo Amati from 1613 and another by Antonio Stradivari from 1734. They demonstrate that while thebody of the instrument is essentially quarter-sized, its neck is as thick as a standard violin. The instrument became extinct by the nineteenth century; new playing techniques on the standard violin resulted in an extended range that precluded the need for the smaller instrument, thus eliminating the unique timbre of the piccolo violin.
Surviving compositions suggests that the instrument was especially prevalent in the Leipzig orbit. The list of Thomaskantoren who wrote for it includes Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle, and Johann Sebastian Bach, as well as Bach’s successors Johann Gottlob Harrer and Johann Friedrich Doles. This dissertation includes annotated editions of cantatas by Knüpfer and Schelle as well as a concerto by Johann Pfeiffer, who studied in Leipzig and worked in Weimar as the Konzertmeister, a position Bach once held. The most well-known works for the instrument are Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, BWV 1046, and Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140; he also employed the instrument in two additional cantatas. Bach’s works for the piccolo violin demonstrate that this aspect of his oeuvre is the culmination of a long tradition that his contemporaries also maintained.

The origin of the violin is one of the great lacunae in the history of musical instruments. The violin is the product of a long process of development, the standard form emerging in Brescia and Cremona in the third quarter of the 16th century Two important documents in the early history of the instrument are a painting of 1529 in Vercelli and the fresco of a large angel concert in the dome of the Santuario at Saronno (1534–35), which shows 56 instruments including four showing most of the basic characteristics of the violin as it was later to be standardized. The painter of these works, Guadenzio Ferrari (ca. 1481-1546), was also a sculptor and musician, and he may well have designed and built the violins he depicted. His methods of representation and purposeful departures from true perspective are discussed, as are paintings by various other artists in Western Lombardy.

Traduzione in italiano dell'articolo di Stewart Pollens "Some Misconceptions about the Baroque Violin" scritto per Performance Practice Review e consultabile su http://scholarship.claremont.edu/ppr/vol14/iss1/6/

Molto è stato scritto riguardo al violino barocco, eppure restano molte le convinzioni errate – in particolare che fino al 1750 i manici fossero sempre più corti e non inclinati indietro come lo sono oggi, che l’angolo delle corde al ponticello fosse notevolmente più piatto, e che le corde fossero di calibri inferiori e sottoposte a minor tensione.

Treatises, reports and iconographic documents testify to the great variety of violin techniques coexisting in Corelli’s lifetime. Cristofor Schor’s famous engraving of Corelli leading an orchestra at the Piazza di Spagna in 1687 shows Corelli holding his instrument against the chest. This technique is also documented for the Italian violin virtuosi Matteis, Geminiani, Veracini, Locatelli and others and was, according to drawings by Pier Leone Ghezzi, widespread in the Roman milieu long after Corelli’s death. Taking sociological, functional, regional and chronological aspects into consideration, there is strong evidence for the credibility of Schor’s document.
Although a violin hold against the chest complicates shifting at first, virtuosi of the time were able to manage the most difficult passages very well with this particular violin technique. While anecdotes report Corelli’s failure as a violinist in the highest hand positions, it was certainly not because of this hold, nor was this the reason for the fairly modest technical requirements of Corelli’s Op. 5. In fact, it is not at all sure that Corelli intended to show his virtuosity with the sonatas of Op. 5. Corelli’s playing was in fact praised by his contemporaries; his skill as a violinist lay not in the high left-hand positions, but rather in his complete control of the bow. Robert Bremner reports that this was a criterion for Corelli’s choice of violinists in his orchestras. The ability of Roman orchestras to play with nuanced dynamic control, as described by contemporary observers, confirms this feature of Corelli’s violin school.
See also: https://www.academia.edu/36319446/Corelli_Op._5._Susanne_Scholz_Barockvioline_Michael_Hell_Cembalo_2018

In the Schrank II collection of the sächsische landesbibliothek – staats- und universitätsbibliothek (sluB) of dresden there is preserved a set of separate parts – copied out by Johann Georg Pisendel between 1720 and 1730 – for an anonymous violin concerto in d major (Mus. 2-o-1,45). laid out in three movements (allegro, Grave, allegro), this composition provides a clear example of the “Vivaldian musical language” exported to, and assimilated by, Dresden (via more or less faithful “followers” or epigones of the red Priest), while not being wholly attributable to Vivaldi.
the most intriguing element within this anonymous concerto is an interesting cadenza at the end of the final allegro. the high incidence of musical concordances of this cadenza with other, authentic ones by the red Priest (in particular, with sections of cadenzas present in the concertos RV 206, 208, 212, 556 and 562), to which can be added a consideration of its overall structure, leads to the conclusion that the cadenza inserted into the final movement of the anonymous violin concerto Mus. 2-o-1,45 in the SLUB is a genuine product of Vivaldi’s pen. In addition, certain graphical peculiarities of the Dresden manuscript, including the strange form of connection between the end of the cadenza and the final tutti, suggest an interchangeability in the use of these cadenzas in different concertos, whether composed by Vivaldi himself or by others.

Catalog of the Vazquez Collection of the Orpheon Foundation, June, 2020. The present exhibition is in Bologna: San Colombano (Genus Bononiae).
https://www.facebook.com/events/312328569767026/

https://www.facebook.com/events/312328569767026/permalink/312350096431540/

http://orpheon.org/exhibitions/exhibitions-2020/bologna-2020/

Orpheon Foundation at the Museo di San Colombano, Bologna: June 16, 2020 to January 10,  2021.
For more information:
www.facebook.com/OrpheonFoundation

La Repubblica:
https://bologna.repubblica.it/cronaca/2020/06/15/foto/san_colombano_le_meraviglie_della_collezione_vazquez_in_mostra-259289574/#1

https://youtu.be/qZzayU62TCE

The violinist Giovanni Antonio Piani had a crucial role in the triumph of Italian instrumental music in France at the beginning of the eighteenth century. A member of a celebrated family of musicians, Piani completed his studies at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini. After moving to Paris, he entered the service of the count of Toulouse around the time when the French aristocracy was beginning to champion the new musical repertory from Italy. Thus far, however, the violin sonatas op. 1 published in Paris in 1712 have been Piani’s only known works. The essay examines the recent rediscovery of a manuscript source containing two unknown sonatas for violin and basso continuo by Piani. The first modern edition of these two sonatas is included in the appendix. Technical and stylistic characteristics of the two works are discussed in connection with the indications on performance practice included in Piani’s printed set as well as looking at the broader musical and cultural context of early 18th-century Paris. Thus, this finding substantively deepens our knowledge on this celebrated virtuoso and offers further significant evidence of the circulation of Neapolitan instrumental music in Europe.

Musicological, stylistic, pedagogical analysis and presentation of the performance edition of the Manuscript M.M. 4824 entitled "Consta este Livro de toda a Casta de Lisões, que servem para se fazer estudo na Rabeca: ao que Se seguem todos os tons, varias Cadencias, diferentes Arpegios, e outras Coriozidades he de Pedro Lopes Nogueira”. The violin method by Pedro Lopes Nogueira can be considered the most complete set of violin studies of the 18th century. From the point of view of the pedagogy of the period, based on partimenti, solfeggi and zibaldone, Nogueira's book has the characteristics of a compilation of exercises and compositions of the zibaldone, commonly used in the Italian music teaching of the 18th century, probably assimilated in Portugal and brought by the immigration of musicians from Italy. Pedro Lopes Nogueira was a Portuguese virtuoso and pedagogue who performed mainly in the cities of Lisbon and Coimbra in the first half of the 18th century for over 60 years. The uniqueness of this method is discussed within the historical context of violin pedagogy, which seems to put Portugal in a new perspective when we compare Pedro Lopes Nogueira with his European contemporaries. Inside his 244 pages, we find a great variety of materials headed by 13 sonatas for violin and continuous bass. The focus of the study is on these sonatas which are evaluated as to their feasibility, degrees of difficulty and musical content, putting them into perspective as a relevant source of teaching, stylistic data and repertoire for public presentation in recitals. A comparative analysis between the Casta de Lições and the main didactic works of the violin of the 18th century, addresses its technical and aesthetic issues, especially with the works of Francesco Geminiani, Leopold Mozart and José Herrando. As methodological references, the schemata proposed by Gjerdingen (GJERDINGEN 2007) and the theory of topics applied to baroque music (LOPEZCANO, 2011; MIRKA, 2014) are used as subsidies for a historically informed interpretation. Likewise, a comparison of the manuscript as a method of studies and/or lessons with one of the main modern authors of violin pedagogy, such as Ivan Galamian, allows the tracing of violinistic principles from the 18th century and their connection with current practices. Regarding the editorial process, the philological principles of the different types of edition (FIGUEIREDO 2004; FIGUEIREDO 2012) and especially the concepts and procedures of EdiP (Performance Edition), proposed by Fausto Borém (2015), are considered.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/early-music-history/latest-issue
Placing amateur performers and their instrument of choice at the forefront of inquiry, this article makes a case for the Spanish guitar as an instrument through which knowing subjects sought an epistemology of musical practice, a way-of-knowing-and-doing that could even surpass other musical epistemologies already in circulation during the seventeenth century. Leading this investigation is a handwritten book of lessons wherein there emerges a preference for learning the violin using the principles of guitar playing. Next, I discuss the appearance of annotated guitar tablature in the copy of Giulio Caccini’s _Le nuove musiche_ held in the Library of Congress, which edits Caccini’s songs to purpose their accompaniments for easier guitar playing. Together, these two documents reveal earnest attempts at being musical with a guitar in the hands or guitar playing in the mind, opening us to a world-view that hinges on the guitar as the locus of musical knowledge.

Giulia Felice d'Este (1588?-1646), figlia naturale del cardinale Alessandro (1568-1624) dei marchesi di Montecchio, fratello di Cesare, primo duca del ramo modenese, fu "principessa suora" che trascorse la maggior parte della sua vita nel monastero delle Agostiniane di San Geminiano a Modena, rinomato per la sua tradizione musicale; qui viveva suor Sulpizia Cesis, nota esecutrice e compositrice di mottetti. Sempre nel San Geminiano entrerà un'altra monaca musicista, suor Angela Caterina, al secolo Eleonora d'Este, figlia del duca Cesare. Poco si conosce di Giulia Felice, se non fosse per la sua corrispondenza con i congiunt e con il padre in primis, e che ha uno dei motivi conduttori nella comune passione per la musica. Sfilano davanti alla grata del Parlatorio del suo monastero alcuni dei protagonisti nell'arte del canto e dell'esecuzione. Persino due virtuose come Adriana Basile Baroni (1580-1642 post) e Ippolita Recupito Marotta (1577-1650),  la visiteranno e le faranno udire la propria voce. In deroga agli stretti vincoli post tridentini della clausura e della "vita comune", che spesso tenta di attenuare o di aggirare, la principessa possiede uno strumento di qualità eccellente, di fattura cremonese, lodato anche dal violinista Cavalcabò. Sembra poi che, tramite il padre, nel marzo del 1623 mettesse in contatto Cavalcabò con Girolamo Frescobaldi. Maestro di violino di Giulia Felice sarà un illustre "virtuoso", don Marco Uccellini da Forlimpopoli (1603 ca.-1680). La sua corrispondenza con il cardinale Alessandro mostra quanto la monaca fosse sua accurata e aggiornatissima "informatrice" sulla vita dei familiari e dei cortigiani; mentre fra le lettere al cugino duca Francesco I ne emerge una del marzo 1633 in cui gli chiede di sollecitare il noto architetto estense Gaspare Vigarani per concludere i lavori al teatro interno al monastero, di cui ella stessa è committente.

This text was written as a contribution to the Laaber Bach-Handbuch (Bd. IV Instrumentalmusik, Laaber 2013), but has been withdrawn by the author after dissention with the publisher. Another text on the violoncello, however, remained in the book.

Bibliographical review and hermeneutics reading of 19 violin tutors from the 21st century. XVIII to contextualize and establish performance guidelines for the Portuguese manuscript Casta de Lições of Pedro Lopes Nogueira (1720). The analysis of the material follows methodological criteria described in this work, classifying the textual directions in three guidelines, namely technical skills (HT), compositional skills (HC) and taste and style (GE) to produce indications understandable for the historically informed performance, its application in the manuscript and consequently in the repertoire of the period

International STIMU-Symposium, "The Historical Violin", Utrecht, 27/08/2019

Violin bands at the Comédie Française: on the interpretation of theatrical music at the time of Lully

Preserved in the Library-museum of the Comédie-Française, the archives of 17th-century theatre « troupes » in Paris (Molière’s company, Guénégaud Theatre, and Comédie-Française) give us precise information about the composition of the orchestra and the number of musicians used during the shows. These archival sources show that stage productions invariably used music, and that the theatre’s orchestra was a violin band, whose role was to play instrumental music and dances between the acts and for intermèdes (interludes). The harpsichord was therefore not used to perform the basso continuo in the instrumental repertoire (being strictly reserved for vocal music). Thus, the way music is performed at the Comédie-Française informs us on the larger use of music in stage music interpretation at the same time, both in theatre and opera.
Using this example, I propose to discuss the importance of violin bands in the French musical context of the 17th century (in keeping with the recent research by Bernard Bardet and Luc Charles-Dominique), and to show the importance of using violin bands for the interpretation of stage music in Lully’s time. Actually, the example of the Comédie-Française invites us to question our conception of the « baroque orchestra », and to relate it to the notions of « suitability » and « context », which are fundamental to perform this musical repertoire.

•••

Les bandes de violons à la Comédie-Française :  réflexions sur l’interprétation de la musique de scène à l’époque de Lully

Conservées à la Bibliothèque-musée de la Comédie-Française, les archives des troupes théâtrales du XVIIe siècle à Paris (Molière, Théâtre Guénégaud, Comédie-Française) nous donnent des indications très précises sur la composition de l’orchestre et le nombre de musiciens employés pendant les représentations. Ces sources d’archives font apparaître que les productions théâtrales employaient quotidiennement de la musique, et que l’orchestre du théâtre était composé d’une bande de violons, dont le rôle était de jouer la musique instrumentale et les danses entre les actes et les intermèdes. Le clavecin n’était pas utilisé pour jouer la basse continue de ce répertoire instrumental (celui-ci étant strictement réservé pour la musique vocale). Les pratiques musicales en usage à la Comédie-Française sont ainsi représentatives des pratiques musicales en usage plus généralement pour la musique de scène à la même époque, pour le théâtre comme pour l’opéra.
A partir de cet exemple, je propose de discuter de l’importance des bandes de violons dans le contexte musical du XVIIe siècle (en lien avec les recherches récentes de Bernard Bardet et de Luc Charles-Dominique), et de montrer l’importance de l’utilisation des bandes de violons pour l’interprétation de la musique de scène à l’époque de Lully. Enfin, l’exemple de la Comédie-Française nous invite à nous questionner sur notre conception d’orchestre baroque, et de le mettre en relation avec les notions de convenance et de contexte, qui sont fondamentales pour jouer ce répertoire musical.

Existem na Biblioteca Pública de Dresden três trios para dois violinos e baixo contínuo atribuídos ao ‘sgnre Avondano’ e catalogados como Mus.2661-Q-1/2/3. Aqui neste artigo busca-se precisar aspectos de data e autoria, através da reunião de dados históricos, além de discutir critérios que permitam elucidar influências estéticas e estilísticas do discurso musical do período vigente, com vistas a orientar uma abordagem interpretativa

Salvatore Mazzella, attivo a Roma nella seconda metà del Seicento, dedicò la sua esigua produzione musicale al Cardinale Astalli personalità controversa dell’aristocrazia romana. Poco o nulla si conosce della sua biografia, salvo alcuni dati estrapolati dal frontespizio della sua unica opera. Tuttavia un recente riesame dei documenti d’archivio ci consente di precisare meglio il profilo di questo compositore fino ad ora poco approfondito dalla ricerca. La collezione di danze strumentali dal titolo 'Balli, correnti, gighe, sarabande, gavotte, brande e gagliarde' offre una poliedrica varietà di forme musicali da ballo, mescolando lo stile italiano al gusto francese. L’espressione «per ballare», usata da Mazzella nel sottotitolo, doveva essere sicuramente finalizzata da un lato alla destinazione d’uso delle danze composte per l’intrattenimento e dall’altro a dare un valore encomiastico e celebrativo con l’obiettivo di catturare l’attenzione e stimolare la curiosità dei suoi «lettori violinisti».
Sulla scorta di queste considerazioni, e soprattutto tenendo conto del cospicuo numero di ricerche e lavori apparsi negli ultimi anni sulla produzione strumentale romana, credo sia possibile ora tracciare un profilo più articolato di Mazzella mettendo in relazione le sue composizioni dell’unica collezione che ci è pervenuta con quanto si andava via via producendo in questo periodo in ambito strumentale a Roma negli anni Sessanta- Ottanta del Seicento.

Ricostruzione della vita musicale presso la chiesa di Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco di Napoli tramite lo studio delle fonti d'archivio (secc. XVII-XVIII).
Tesi del Biennio di Specializzazione in DISCAMUS (Discipline storiche, critiche, analitiche della Musica) del Conservatorio D. Cimarosa di Avellino, relatore: Prof. Paologiovanni Maione; correlatore: Prof.ssa Marina Marino, a.a. 2013-14.