Giovanni Battista Sammartini’s late symphonies: a recording project
The Milanese composer G. B. Sammartini (1701 ‐ 1775), is considered by modern musicology to be the key figure in the development of the so‐called Classical style. Famous during his lifetime, performed throughout Europe, Gluck’s teacher from 1737 to 1741, he frequented the leading musicians of his time (including Mozart) and was the hub of Milan’s musical life. Known in textbooks on music history as the “father of the symphony”, Sammartini was in fact the first composer to try and develop the symphony starting from the “concerto” and “sonata for three instruments” (i.e. the chamber music forms of baroque music) rather than the “Ouverture d’Opera”; indeed he is the composer of the first symphonies whose composition date is known (precisely 1732). In his early experiments, Sammartini was able to establish an ensemble of instruments for the symphony which remained the standard combination for the classical period. The importance of G. B. Sammartini’s symphonic works is fully recognized today, thanks also to the work of two American researchers, N. Jenkins and B. Churgin. We have a complete picture of Sammartini’s symphonic output thanks to the work by Bathia Churgin and Newell Jenkins, who published in 1976 the thematic catalogue of the composer’s works. As well as 74 symphonies whose authorship is uncertain or even dubious, 68 symphonies were catalogued whose authorship is quite certain. These works have been divided by Bathia Churgin into three stylistic periods: the early period (up to 1739), the second period (from 1740 to 1758) and the late period (from 1759 to 1775). The style of the works dating from the late period can already be defined as classical and in some cases is reminiscent of the style of Mozart or Boccherini. The orchestration becomes more complex and sophisticated: wind instruments (horns and oboes) are added, basses and cellos have independent parts and in some symphonies violas play divisi. Despite his fame during his lifetime, Sammartini’s music met with a curious fate due to the historical events that wracked Milan at the end of the century: not one known signature by Sammartini is conserved in the Milan archives, since all the documents ended up in Vienna or Paris during the upheavals of the first French occupation. Thus, for a century and a half the problem of cataloguing Sammartini’s works, in particular the symphonies, was an extremely complex problem for musicology, due to the manuscripts and publications of Sammartini’s music being dispersed throughout Europe – a problem that was not to be solved until 1968 with the publication of the key study by B. Churgin, The Symphonies of G.B. Sammartini. The result is that today anyone wishing to perform a symphony by Sammartini would have to limit the choice to the first 20 published in 1968 by B. Churgin, to the subsequent 10 symphonies published – again by Churugin – in the ‘70s or to the 2 published in 1973 by N. Zimpel; if, instead, (s)he wished to study those written in his prime, i.e. after 1760, (s)he would have to undertake an exhausting hunt through Europe’s libraries. The symphonies in this project are unpublished: belonging to the group composed in the late period and thus extremely important from a stylistic point of view, the manuscripts are to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France ‐ Fonds du Conservatoire in Paris. On completion of the entire cycle of late symphonies, this first CDs has been rounded off with recording of a quintet for three violins, viola, cello and basso continuo (from the collection of 6 quintets of 1776), also unpublished and from the Bibiothèque Nationale de France in Paris. The second CD will include symphonies JC 17, 11, 49, 40, 26. In both cases the pieces are previously unpublished, both on paper and in the form of recordings. The symphonies’ scoring consists of a full string orchestra with the addition of a couple of oboes and a couple of horns. Giovanni Battista Sammartini: four late symphonies and a late quintet
Now at the threshold of sixty, in 1760 Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700/01‐1775) is at the height of his career. Highly regarded by foreign visitors (one must bear in mind Charles de Brosses’ and Quantz’s enthusiastic judgements), widely known in Europe thanks to reprints and new editions published in Paris and London – including the collection of Sonate a tre stromenti dedicated to Don Filippo Infante of Spain – official member of the court orchestra, Sammartini is active in seven Milanese churches, regularly devotes time to the composition of symphonies and string quartets and is well introduced into the city’s intellectual and cultural circles, which are particularly fertile and lively at that time. These are the years in which Giuseppe Parini publishes Mattino (1763) and Mezzogiorno (1765); Cesare Beccaria with the brothers Pietro and Alessandro Verri, Count Lambertenghi, Count Biffi and Abbot Alfonso Longo, founds the Accademia dei Pugni and in 1764 anonymously prints his Dei delitti e delle pene (On Crime and
Punishment). Year 1764 also sees the publication Il caffè which, during the two years of its existence, makes ample room for philosophical and literary studies, sustaining a lively argument against the old culture of rhetoric. Milan is thus a truly prolific cultural epicentre and Sammartini works there in a leading role, both as a composer and as a performer. In 1765, for example, he is made responsible for organizing the «Accademie e Sinfonie» in Pavia and Cremona, when Archduke Leopold of Habsburg and his bride pass through, and surrounds himself with important instrumentalists, amongst whom Leopoldo and Luigi Boccherini are prominent; he composes regularly and produces several pages of symphonic music, although fewer than previously, and the collection of six quintets, that can with certainty be dated 1773. The symphonies JC 63, 60, 22 and 311 can definitely be attributed to this 1759‐1774 period, usually considered Sammartini’s third and last from a stylistic point of view, and they reveal distinct and well defined features. All written for a group of instruments consisting of strings, two oboes and two horns, they offer an exquisitely concertante composition for the instruments, in which the inclusion of the continuo appears mostly superfluous, and in which there are parts where celli/basses and violas play divisi (JC 63 and JC 60). Each symphony preserves the usual structure in three tempi; at times Sammartini abandons his usual Andante and replaces it with an Allegrino (a term with a ‘Milanese flavour’ to it, identical in meaning to Allegretto) in the form of a scherzo. This happens in JC 60 where two oboes are summoned to enrich the sonority of the string quartet and personalize the affected theme with embellishments within a bithematic and tripartite form. The initial Allegretto moderato also gives evidence of new elements, not only because of the fully classical spirit of the themes, but also because of the “block” approach to the use of instruments: string phrases are answered or integrated by wind instruments on a path that develops according to the bithematic and tripatite scheme skilfully ‘contracted’ in the recapitulation. The final Allegro brillante is again a Minuet in sonata form, in which there are numerous concertante examples of strings and wind instruments: solo passages of great interest are entrusted to the violas in particular, and it is these that probably earned the composition its title of «Sinfonia per Camera Concertata». After a rousing initial Presto, symphony JC 63 in A major displays an Andante piano in which the main role is given to the first violin, regularly supported by the rest of the string section, with its melody being interrupted from time to time by the oboes. This ‘pre‐eminence’ is conserved to some extent, at least for the part in the Major key, in the tripartite Presto which follows, even though the phrases are far shorter and more diversified. Symphony JC 22 in D major is characterized by an unusual variety in terms of form and thematic construction. This emerges in particular in the first Presto movement, in which the sonata form offers a vast range of figurations which alternate winds and strings both in the exposition and in the development sections, where the author’s creative imagination also suggests the introduction of new ideas instead of developing the existing ones. Whilst in the Assai Andante in G major, the wind section only intervenes periodically to emphasize some specific phrases, in the final, tripartite Allegrissimo, it asserts itself forcefully, claiming some highly interesting solos within a widely varied rhythmic structure which includes some surprising harmonies. Symphony JC 31 in E major incorporates a dense sequence of melodic patterns and rhythmic figurations within a traditionally structured first movement (Allegro assai). No less interesting is the interweaving of the development, which effectively brings together the original rhythm and new inventions. Opening with a delicate play of two alternating violins to announce the theme, the central Andante movement in E minor, a tripartite and bithematic movement, proceeds with specific imitative interventions that involve the whole orchestra. The final Minuet, a tripartite Allegro spiritoso e brillante, dominated by a brilliant vis with a richly varied rhythm, arouses the listener’s interest, thanks to the well calibrated interventions of the woodwind section, at times doubling and at times used as soloists. The same collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris where all the symphonies listed are conserved also houses the last six quintets for three violins, viola and cello, composed between April and September 1773 and probably destined for a group of aristocratic amateur players or for a performance in an Accademia. From this corpus number five has been chosen, as it reproduces the distinctive features of the entire collection: apparently simple composition, discreet interweaving of instruments, highly regular harmonic organisation, variety of rhythm, attention to effect in performance, thanks to valuable indications as to expression, such as saltellate, dolce assai, and its subdivision into three movements. The unique features of the composition are instead contained not only in the specific succession of movements, all fast ones (Allegrissimo, Allegrino, Allegro moderato in the form of a Minuet with trio), but, especially, in the nature of the themes, which tend to be short and concise and lend themselves to constant repetition, overlapping, elaboration, contraction. They are mainly presented by the first violin, which prevails over the other instruments; however, when it comes to the elaboration, all instruments are involved and contribute effectively to building up tension, which is not released until the recapitulation.
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The abbreviation JC refers to the catalogue number published in N. Jenkins ‐ B. Churgin, Thematic Catalogue of the Works of Giovanni Battista Sammartini: Orchestral and Vocal Music, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1976.
Rhythmic energy, enjoyable, attractive themes, a wide variety of development with the insertion of new thematic elements, brilliance and variety of rhythm (the «rhythmic impressionism» and «immediate lyricism» defined by Torrefranca should not be forgotten) are thus to be found in the composer’s mature repertory. And it is from this that the role of Sammartini ‐ that «most capricious Milanese» as Giuseppe Carpini defined him ‐ as the first important symphonic composer of the eighteenth century is able to emerge clearly. Of course his symphonies were preceded chronologically by those of Andrea Zani and Antonio Brioschi but from an artistic point of view they represent the first real contribution to the dawning symphonic taste, as it is to establish itself from the Mannheim school onwards. Numerous similarities are to be found, for example, between Sammartini’s symphonies and those of Jan Vaclav Antonin Stamitz (1717‐ 1757) and it is thus probable that the Bohemian knew and imitated the style of the Milanese. Just as it has also been demonstrated that Johann Christian Bach, who worked in Milan between 1754 and 1762, thoroughly assimilated Sammartini’s lessons, re‐thinking them in his own personal style as early as the symphonies collected in op. 3 published in 1765. Until halfway through the eighteenth century at least, the Milanese symphonic school (which originated from Sammartini’s ‘train’, and was the most important of Europe according to De Brosses) did in fact provide European musicians with an increasingly perfect model for responding to the new orchestral taste. From this point of view, the now legendary comment by Josef Myslivecek, after listening to Sammartini’s music, can still be considered valid: «I have found the father of Haydn’s style». Mariateresa Dellaborra Translation: Patricia Hampton