Amilcare Ponchielli: Simple Pensée, Op. 81, for Violin and Piano

Amilcare Ponchielli: Simple Pensée, Op. 81, for violin and piano. Critical edition by Francesco Ottonello, with an introduction and critical remarks by Pietro Zappalà. Edizioni del Centro Studi Amilcare Ponchielli, Vol. 4. Score and violin part.

Introduction

The lack of in-depth biographical information about Amilcare Ponchielli and the scarcity of documentation that still surrounds the epistolary exchanges between the composer and his friends and colleagues deprive us of valuable sources for identifying, dating and contextualising many of his works considered minor. Among these certainly figures Simple pensée op. 81, the sole source of which at the moment is the posthumous publication curated by his son Annibale. We have no information regarding the autograph or other manuscript copies which might provide illuminating indications as to the date and occasion of the composition and the person to whom it was addressed or dedicated; we know even less about possible executions. Not even the correspondence known to us offers any contributions that shed light on these aspects.

Beyond the objective dimension contained in this brief piece for violin and piano, its collocation among the minor works and the consequent scant information that we can have about it derives in all probability from the fact that the attention of scholars of Amilcare Ponchielli is almost entirely centred on his operatic production, which is in any case in keeping with the vocation declared by the composer himself. We do well, however, to recall that amply present in the body of Ponchielli’s compositions are other areas absolutely worthy of note: the very numerous compositions of band music (as neglected as they are historically important), sacred music, and the production of chamber music both vocal and instrumental.

In Ponchielli’s compositions of instrumental chamber music are found works of diverse conception: from piano music of a light, popular nature such as the dances, to those more lyrical and tightly constructed such as the elegies and nocturnes; from lengthy multi-section chamber pieces with moments prevalently melodic alternating with others that are remarkable virtuosic, to brief compositions that can be identified as pages from an album or little more. To this last category belongs Simple pensée, whose very title announces its intimate nature and linear discourse. The piece is structurally simple, and does not pretend to technical virtuosity other than the ability to make the violin sing to express the broad cantability on which the composition is based. We might almost say that this composition for violin and piano is in all ways comparable to the chamber romances ‒ another area of Ponchielli’s creativity that deserves recovery and promotion ‒ into which the composer pours his rich melodic inventiveness, in this case entrusting it to an instrumental voice. It is no coincidence that Giuseppe De Napoli, in mentioning this composition in passing, omits its actual title and defines it as Romanza.4

A final consideration that opens the door to a doubt. In the catalogue of Ponchielli’s works ascertained thus far,5 some among the chamber works, prevalently those for wind instruments, can be surely traced to the early years spent in Milan at the conservatory or those immediately following his diploma in composition.6 Instead, Simple pensée figures as the only composition written expressly for violin and piano. This fact appears singular, if we consider that Ponchielli was an intimate friend of various members of the musical Bignami family of Cremona, including, in addition to the celebrated painter and portraitist Vespasiano, the violinist Pompeo, almost the same age as Ponchielli, and their father, Giacomo, a generation older, also a violinist. It is believed that it was one of these whom Ponchielli had in mind for the violin solo present in his opera I Promessi sposi: if this was indeed the case, is it not possible that he had written for them other pieces that were clearly for the violin? Let us hope that future research and discoveries in archives and libraries will present us with compositions yet unknown dedicated to the violin.

Pietro Zappalà, Cremona, 18 September 2022

Translated from the Italian by Kim Williams

Notes

4 GIUSEPPE DE NAPOLI, Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886) La vita, le opere, l’epistolario, le onoranze; notizie e incisioni raccolte da Giuseppe de Napoli e pubblicate dalla Amministrazione podestarile di Cremona in ricorrenza del cinquantenario della morte del musicista, Cremona, Cremona nuova, 1936, p. 303.

5 The principal bibliographic references for reconstructing the corpus of Ponchielli’s musical production are: LICIA SIRCH, Catalogo tematico delle musiche di Amilcare Ponchielli, Cremona, Fondazione Claudio Monteverdi, 1989; ETTORE BORRI, I manoscritti di Ponchielli dalla collezione «G. C. Sonzogno», s.l., s.n., 1996; RAFFAELLA BARBIERATO, I manoscritti ponchielliani nella Biblioteca Statale di Cremona: novità ed integrazioni, in Ponchielli e la musica per banda: atti della Tavola rotonda: Ridotto del Teatro Ponchielli, 27 aprile 2001, Pisa: ETS, 2005, pp. 355-435. However, investigations among archives and antique markets continue to bright to light other testimonies of the composer’s creativity, so that it cannot be excluded that the overall picture and above all that regarding individual compositions might change significantly in the future.

6 See the Piccolo concertino op. 75 and the Capriccio op. 80, both for oboe and piano, dedicated to Cesare Confalonieri; the Quartetto op. 110 for flute, oboe, two clarinets and piano, also dedicated to Confalonieri; Il convegno op. 76A, for two clarinets and orchestra, dedicated to Alessandro Peri and Massimiliano Sacchi.