Francesco Mancini enjoyed considerable fame and success during his lifetime, but his figure has progressively faded into oblivion; it is therefore a praiseworthy undertaking that of bringing some of his finest instrumental works to light, with the aim of fostering our contemporary appreciation of this Neapolitan master.
Born in 1672, he was the son of Nicola, an organist, to whom probably the first musical education of Francesco is to be ascribed. Following the premature death of his father, Francesco continued his musical studies at one of the best-known Conservatories of the city of Naples, that of the Pietà dei Turchini. Upon completing his education there, and having served for six years as an organist at the same institution, Mancini embarked on a successful career as a court musician.
Towards the end of the century, he had already established himself as an appreciated composer, particularly in the field of vocal music, where he was to become one of the main figures of the Neapolitan panorama. His oratories, unfortunately largely lost, were performed throughout the Peninsula; his operas followed each other regularly in the first decade of the eighteenth century.
At the same time, Mancini nourished high hopes to obtain the much-desired appointment as Chapel Master in the court orchestra. The propitious opportunity seemed to come in July 1707, when two unforeseen circumstances appeared to favour the composer. During a leave of the titular, Alessandro Scarlatti, Naples fell under Austrian jurisdiction, and a viceroy took office. Sparing no efforts, Mancini composed a festive Te Deum celebrating the new rulers and thus positioning himself in the most favourable light. The expected results came soon, and Mancini obtained the appointment; however, approximately one and a half year later, Scarlatti reacted to the usurpation and was reinstalled in his previous role. In spite of this, the whole enterprise had actually brought some lasting improvements in Mancini’s career, and had consolidated his status as the designated successor of Scarlatti.
In the following years, Mancini kept writing successful operas, some of which were premiered in Rome, a city he regularly visited. He was also gifted with a comical vein, which counterbalances the earnestness of his opera serie and oratorios. His pedagogical activity was also fundamental for the education of younger musicians, and was acknowledged publicly with important appointments. Moreover, Mancini established lasting relationships with the numerous confraternities of the city, participating as a composer and musician in their festivities and celebrations. His overall production bears witness to his multifaceted talent, which expressed itself in almost all genres practised by the composers of his era. His predilection for vocality, however, emerges clearly also in his instrumental music, characterized by beautiful cantabile lines and sustained melodies.
In 1725, at Scarlatti’s death, Mancini obtained the role of Chapel Master, for which he had so actively fought. Nine years later, however, another political earthquake hit the city: the Austrians lost Naples to the Bourbons. Demonstrating uncommon political ability, Mancini was capable of maintaining his status and privileges under the new rulers, whom he greeted, once more, with a festive Te Deum. Unfortunately, however, he was able to fulfill his duties as a Chapel Master only for one more year, since in 1735 he lost all of his faculties and remained paralysed for the following two years, until his death in 1737.
The extent of his fame and influence is testified by the widespread dissemination of his works, both handwritten and printed, throughout Europe: the reprint of the Sonatas recorded in this and in another Da Vinci Classics album was edited by a musician of the standing of Geminiani, and many documents attest that Mancini was widely appreciated and highly considered.
This complete recording of one of his finest instrumental collections, therefore, is a milestone in the path towards the recognition of Mancini’s standing in the history of eighteenth-century music.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2021
NOTE ON INTERPRETATION
With this CD we are accomplishing the complete recording of the twelve Sonatas (Solos) for flute and continuo by Francesco Mancini.
Within a musical panorama such as that of Naples at the beginning of the eighteenth century, dominated by the figure of Alessandro Scarlatti, Mancini had a non-peripheral role. Among his other roles, he was also the Director of the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto for a few years. The fates of Scarlatti and Mancini intertwined when they both worked at the Vice-royal Chapel: the composer from Palermo as chapel master, and Mancini as his deputy. At Scarlatti’s death, the Neapolitan succeeded him as the titular of this job, in a position he maintained for almost a decade. In particular, the years of the Austrian viceroy (1707-1734) saw Mancini as an increasingly authoritative figure in the Neapolitan musical world.
Whilst he was active mainly as an operatic and church music composer, Francesco Mancini ventured also in the field of instrumental music. This includes the twelve Sonatas collected in the Solos for a violin or flute. This undated publication saw the light in London, in the 1720s. For the recording of the first six Sonatas (Da Vinci Classics 7.46160911922) we limited the performing forces to just two instruments, the recorder and the harpsichord, exploring the expressive possibilities of such a small ensemble. In this second part we wished to add the cello and, in two out of the six sonatas, the organ, in order to enrich the instrumental colour and the contrapuntal texture.
What remains the same is the intention which brought us to propose these works. We wished to consider them as musical objects from which we could extract, with a good amount of expressive freedom, an interpretation which had to be mainly the result of a fecund dialogue between our sensitivity and that of our ancestors of three centuries ago. In order for this freedom not to become arbitrariness, we count on our capability for discernment: we presume to have matured it thanks to our long years of acquaintance with historical research on the performance practices of the time. In the end, we are inspired mainly by the quest for a common place of encounter, the “fusion of horizons” theorized by Gadamer’s hermeneutics. This leads us to believe that so-called “authenticity” cannot and should not be the result of interpretation (since no aural incarnation of a musical text can rightfully boast such a title) but is rather just a presupposition which should be built prior to the interpretive act, conceiving it as an “authentic” relationship with the music and musicians of the past.
Let us point out that the XII Solos for a violin or flute were primarily conceived for a public of amateurs, the “amatori dell’harmonia”, as they are defined in the Preface. Certainly, John Fleetwood, the collection’s dedicatee, was one of them. He was the General Consul of England to the Kingdom of Naples. Since we are not amateurs, however, we pondered about the best way to serve this music through our knowledge and skill. We got to the conclusion that a correct appropriation of these works by virtuosos could, or perhaps should, include their substantial rewriting. We thought of ourselves as virtuosos in the eighteenth-century meaning of the word: not as a presumptive excellency, but as a simple acknowledgement of the different relationship that a professional musician has with the musical text, yesterday as is today. Therefore, along with the addition of a rich ornamentation by the recorder, and with the emancipation of the harpsichord from its role as a mere accompanying instrument, transforming it into a concertante instrument (these practices had been already experimented in the first album dedicated to this collection), we decided to establish a more important role for the cello as well. On numerous occasions, the cello was freed by the task of performing the continuo, in order to be able to spontaneously enter in a dialogue with the other instruments .
The habit to add written part to a pre-existing bass line has, in fact, a precise reference in the practice of disposizioni. These were one of the pedagogical instruments employed for educational purposes in the Neapolitan Conservatories of the eighteenth century. Regarding this, it should be emphasized once more that Mancini himself had an important role within the prestigious Neapolitan schools of music, as the director of one of them, the Conservatory of Santa Maria di Loreto . In the early 1700s, Naples was a centre of great importance for the technical and musical development of the cello. The city contributed, with its famous soloists, to the dissemination of the vogue of this instrument throughout Italy and in the remainder of Europe. The most celebrated names are those by Francesco Scipriani, Francesco Alborea (aka Francischello), and Salvatore Lanzetti. In particular, Alborea was a virtuoso admired throughout Europe. He had such a talent for the instrument that he earned almost legendary fame. In a painting by Nicola Maria Rossi, representing the holiday of the “Four Altars” (1732), to which the Austrian Viceroy, Aloys Thomas Raimund Harrach took part, Alborea is portrayed in a group of musicians led by Mancini, who, at the time, was master of the Viceroy’s Chapel. When we decided to dedicate to the cello a part composed ex novo, a concertante part, we thought also of the proximity between the two musicians. We imagined such a skilled virtuoso as Francischello champing at the bit, had he been restrained to the performance of the bass line alone.
Maria de Martini and Salvatore Carchiolo © 2021