In stile passeggiato: The Art of Diminution

Composer(s)

Arcangelo Corelli (b Fusignano, 17 Feb 1653; d Rome, 8 Jan 1713). Italian composer and violinist. Despite the modest size of his output, comprising six collections of instrumental music and a handful of other authentic works, and its virtual restriction to three genres – solo sonata, trio sonata and concerto – Corelli exercised an unparalleled influence during his lifetime and for a long time afterwards. This influence, which affected form, style and instrumental technique in equal measure, was most closely felt in Italy, and in particular in Rome, where he settled in early manhood, but soon spread beyond local and national confines to become a European phenomenon. As a violinist, teacher of the violin and director of instrumental ensembles Corelli imposed standards of discipline that were unusually strict for their period and helped to lay the groundwork for further progress along the same lines during the 18th century. To Corelli belong equally the distinctions of being the first composer to derive his fame exclusively from instrumental composition, the first to owe his reputation in large part to the activity of music publishers, and the first to produce ‘classic’ instrumental works which were admired and studied long after their idiom became outmoded.

Dario Castello
(fl Venice, 1st half of 17th century). Italian composer and wind player. By 1621, according to the title-pages of his publications, he was leader of a wind ensemble and a musician at S Marco, Venice. A reprint of his sonatas, dated 1658, refers to him as ‘già capo di istromenti da fiato’, implying that he was no longer active. A link has been suggested between him and a Giovanni Battista Castello, who was hired as piffaro to the doge in 1626. Dario Castello's two collections of sonatas, comprising 29 works, are not as idiomatic to the violin as works by some of his contemporaries (for example G.B. Fontana, C.A. Marini and Uccellini), but the virtuoso instrumental writing, especially for the bassoon, is notable. Composed of a varying number of short contrasting sections, the sonatas all follow a very clear three- or four-part formal pattern, based on a limited repertory of opening, central, solo-related and closing devices. The juxtaposition of contrasting tempos and affects is typical of the concerted stile moderno of the early 17th century. The unusual number of reprints of both books of sonatas is an indication of the popularity and wide diffusion of Castello's works.

Francesca Caccini
(b Florence, 18 Sept 1587; d after June 1641). Italian composer and singer, elder daughter of (1) Giulio Caccini. She was the first woman known to have composed opera and probably the most prolific woman composer of her time.

As the daughter, sister, wife and mother of singers, Francesca Caccini was immersed in the musical culture of her time from earliest childhood. In addition to training in singing, guitar, harp and keyboard playing, and composition, she must have received a literary education, for she is known to have written poetry in Italian and Latin. Along with her sister (3) Settimia and her stepmother Margherita della Scala, she is assumed to have been one of the ‘donne di Giulio Romano’ (Giulio Caccini) who performed in Jacopo Peri’s L’Euridice and her father’s Il rapimento di Cefalo in 1600 and who dominated the official chamber music of the Medici court in the first decade of the 17th century. After 1611 this ensemble was replaced by a group described in court diaries as ‘la sig.a Francesca e le sue figliuole’ (Francesca and her pupils), who regularly performed chamber music for women’s voices until the late 1620s.

Francesco Rognoni
(b ?Milan, 2nd half of 16th century; d ?in or after 1626). Musician and composer, son of (1) Riccardo Rognoni. Biographical information on him comes principally from his publications. In 1608 he was associated with the Milanese academy of Marco Maria Arese, the dedicatee of his collection of instrumental canzonas of that year. In 1610 he was director of music to the Prince of Masserano, to whom he dedicated a collection of sacred music in that year. In 1613 he was director of instrumental music to the governor of Milan, the dedicatee of his first book of madrigals for five voices of that year, and in 1614 he published there his first violin treatise, Aggiunta del scolaro di violino & altri strumenti, now lost. In 1619 Borsieri mentioned him as a flautist and violinist as well as composer. In 1620 he was maestro di cappella of S Ambrogio. According to his Selva de varii passaggi, he had connections with King Sigismund III of Poland (the dedicatee of the work), and directed the instrumental ensemble of the ducal court at Milan at least between 1620 and 1626. From the collection of masses and motets of 1624, dedicated to Archduke Karl of Austria, we learn that Francesco had been appointed a Papal Knight and hereditary Palatine Count. The inclusion of two of his works in a collection of sacred and instrumental works published in Milan in 1626 indicates that he was still alive in this year.

(fl 1660–69). Italian composer and violinist. He was among the instrumentalists of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria at Innsbruck when his opp.3 and 4 were published in 1660. The 1669 volume is attributed only to ‘D. Gio. Antonio Pandolfi’ but there is little doubt that it is by the same composer. The 1660 sonatas are characterized by rhapsodical, improvisatory outpourings over simple continuo accompaniments. While requiring considerable manual dexterity they never exceed fifth position. The designation ‘per chiesa e camera’ suggests an all-purpose style, and all 12 sonatas bear dedications, some to such famous musicians as Antonio Cesti, then maestro di cappella della camera at Innsbruck. The 1669 collection is remarkable in its choice of instrumentation: besides the ‘terza parte della viola a beneplacito’ (actually essential), the specified continuo is organ, a common chamber instrument but hardly ever mentioned, as here, in connection with dances. The dedication refers to performances at an academy.

Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani
(b Florence, 15 July 1638; d ?Pistoia, after 1692). Italian composer and violinist. He was a violinist at the court at Innsbruck at least between 1656 and 1660. From 1672 to 1676 he was director of the court music at Innsbruck, which, after the extinction of the Tyrolean Habsburgs, had come under the control of the emperor. In publications of 1678 he still described himself as holding this position. But during the opera season in Venice from 1677 to 1678 his arrangement of Cavalli’s Scipione affricano and his own opera Astiage were performed, which suggests that he must have been there, and in 1678 at the Oratorio di S Marcello in Rome he directed an oratorio in which Corelli and Pasquini participated. He was probably elevated to the nobility in the same year, since he subsequently designated himself ‘Nobile del Sacro Romano Imperio’. Between 1678 and 1679 and 1681 and 1682 he was in Naples as director of a troupe of opera singers, and while he was there he performed some of his own operas and oratorios. In 1686 he was maestro di cappella to the Prince of Bisignano. From January 1687 to December 1692 he was maestro di cappella of Pistoia Cathedral.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
(b probably at Palestrina, almost certainly between 3 Feb 1525 and 2 Feb 1526; d Rome, 2 Feb 1594). Italian composer. He ranks with Lassus and Byrd as one of the towering figures in the music of the late 16th century. He was primarily a prolific composer of masses and motets but was also an important madrigalist. Among the native Italian musicians of the 16th century who sought to assimilate the richly developed polyphonic techniques of their French and Flemish predecessors, none mastered these techniques more completely or subordinated them more effectively to the requirements of musical cogency. His success in reconciling the functional and aesthetic aims of Catholic church music in the post-Tridentine period earned him an enduring reputation as the ideal Catholic composer, as well as giving his style (or, more precisely, later generations’ selective view of it) an iconic stature as a model of perfect achievement.

Girolamo Frescobaldi: (b Ferrara, bap. mid-Sept 1583; d Rome, 1 March 1643). Italian composer and keyboard virtuoso. He was one of the greatest keyboard composers of the first half of the 17th century.

Jacques Arcadelt
Franco-Flemish composer. His output includes both sacred and, especially, secular music, and he was famed above all as a madrigalist.

Marco Uccellini (b c1603; d Forlimpopoli, nr Forlì, 11 Sept 1680). Italian composer and instrumentalist. After studying in Assisi he settled in Modena some time before 1639. In 1641 he became head of instrumental music at the Este court and in 1647 maestro di cappella at the cathedral there, a post he held until 1665. From 1665 until his death he was maestro di cappella at the Farnese court at Parma. None of the music of the operas and ballets he produced there has survived.

Uccellini is important as a composer of instrumental music, of which his extant output comprises seven printed collections; at least one other (op.1) is lost. Opp.2–5 are mainly devoted to sonatas, while the later prints contain shorter sinfonias and dances. Although the sonatas are early, they, together with his development of violin technique, represent his most notable achievements. Most of the sonatas are basically in ternary form; others are in as many as five sections. Variation and sequential repetition of themes and phrases are favourite methods of expanding sections; in an attempt to achieve thematic unity more than one subsequent section of several sonatas opens with a variant of the initial idea or even of an entire previous section. Uccellini’s use of triadic themes and lengthy sequences modulating through the circle of 5ths points towards a strong connection with the style later to be developed in Bologna by Cazzati, G.B. Vitali and G.M. Bononcini. His exploration of more distant keys such as B major, B minor and E minor, unusual in string music of the time, is notable. He also used piquant chromaticisms and false relations. The range of the violin is extended up to 6th position (g'''), and slurs, tremolo passages and wide leaps are frequent. The solo violin sonatas of opp.4 and 5 represent the highest point of development in the genre before J.H. Schmelzer and Biber. They are longer and in a patently more virtuoso style than those of Biagio Marini, and are clear counterparts to keyboard toccatas. The sinfonias, except for a battle piece in op.8, are less adventurous than the sonatas. The arie of the 1642 and 1645 collections are descendants of the older variation sonata; their thematic material includes an interesting selection of popular tunes of the time.

Mateo Flecha
(b Prades, ?1481; d Poblet, ?1553). Spanish composer. According to Fétis he studied music in Barcelona with Juan Castelló. In December 1522 he joined Lérida Cathedral as cantor and in the following year was appointed maestro de capilla, leaving that post before 31 October 1525. In 1533 his name appeared in the preparatory evidence for the synodial constitutions of the diocese of Sigüenza, and he was maestro de capilla there from perhaps 1537 to 1539. From May 1544 he held the equivalent post in the capilla of the Infantas María and Juana of Castile in the castle of Arévalo, an appointment he left in 1548, perhaps because of the marriage of María to Maximilian of Austria.

Vittoria Aleotti
(b Ferrara, c1575; d after 1620). Italian composer, possibly identical with Raffaella Aleotti. Daughter of Ferrarese architect Giovanni Battista Aleotti, she first learned music by overhearing lessons intended for an older sister. Astonishing her parents and her sister’s teacher, Alessandro Milleville, by her harpsichord performance at about age six, she was taught directly by Milleville for at least two years before he recommended that she be educated at the musically renowned convent of S Vito, Ferrara. According to her father, Vittoria ‘chose to dedicate herself … to the service of God’ when she was 14. Sometime after that her father obtained madrigals from G.B. Guarini for her to set to music. He gave the results to Count del Zaffo, who had the music printed by Vincenti in Venice, as Ghirlanda de madrigali a quattro voci, in 1593. They represent a range of late 16th-century styles, from simple canzonettas to serious efforts at exploiting dissonance to express images of amorous longing or distress. Occasional awkward handlings of imitation or of text declamation suggest that the madrigals of Ghirlanda were still student works. Nothing more is known about Vittoria Aleotti. Carruthers-Clement, Bridges and Ossi believe that she took the name Raffaella when she professed vows as a nun at S Vito, because there is no record of a Vittoria at S Vito, and because her father’s will mentions a daughter named Raffaella but not one named Vittoria.