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Lodovico Giustini da Pistoia 1685–1743 12 Sonate da Cimbalo di piano e forte (Florence, 1732) Compact Disc 1
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Compact Disc 2
54’42
64’22
1 2 3 4 5
Suonata I in G minor I. Balletto: Spiritoso, ma non presto II. Corrente: Allegro III. Sarabanda: Grave IV. Giga: Presto V. Minuet: Affettuoso
3’52 2’11 3’04 1’33 0’51
1 2 3 4 5
Suonata V in D I. Preludio: Adagio, e arpeggiato nell’acciaccature II. Allegro III. Affettuoso IV. Corrente: Allegro V. Tempo di Gavotta
7’39 3’16 3’29 2’30 2’20
6 7 8 9 10
Suonata II in C minor I. Grave II. Corrente: Allegro III. Giga: Grave IV. Giga: Presto V. Minuet
5’01 2’29 5’07 1’54 1’12
6 7 8 9
Suonata VI in B flat I. Preludio: Grave II. Allegro assai III. Dolce IV. Giga: Allegro
5’13 3’19 5’30 2’13
11 12 13 14
Suonata III in F I. Siciliana: Affett[uos]o II. Canzone III. Andante, ma non presto IV. Giga: Presto
5’29 2’33 3’15 2’12
10 11 12 13
Suonata VII in G I. Alemanda: Andante II. Corrente: Presto assai III. Siciliana: Affettuoso IV. Gavotta: Presto
5’01 3’10 5’07 2’09
15 16 17 18
Suonata IV in E minor I. Preludio: Largo II Presto III. Sarab[and]a: Largo IV. Giga: Allegro
6’39 3’00 1’59 2’15
14 15 16 17
Suonata VIII in A I. Sarabanda: Affettuoso II. Allegro III. Rondò: Affettuoso IV. Giga: Prestissimo
4’45 3’19 2’43 2’33
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57’28
1 2 3 4
Suonata IX in C I. Sarab[and]a: Andante II. Alemanda: Allegro III. Rondò: Affettuoso IV. Gavotta: Allegro
6’28 4’21 2’28 3’09
5 6 7 8
Suonata X in F minor I. Alemanda: Affett[uos]o II. Canzone: Tempo di Gavotta III. Alemanda: Grave, e Affett[uos]o IV. Corrente: Allegro assai
4’11 1’06 3’31 1’50
9 10 11 12 13
Suonata XI in E I. Alemanda: Allegro, ma non presto II. Dolce III. Gavotta IV. Rondò: Affettuoso V. Giga: Allegro assai
2’58 2’02 1’58 2’40 1’50
14 15 16 17 18
Suonata XII in G I. Sarabanda: Largo II. Canzone III. Siciliana: Affettuoso IV. Giga: Presto assai V. Minuet: Allegro
6’41 3’34 4’53 2’27 1’15
The mother of all piano sonatas It is not at all obvious how to approach this extraordinary and unique collection, the ‘mother’ of all collections of piano sonatas. Scipione Mattei is thought to be the first to disseminate Bartolomeo Cristofori’s remarkable invention of a keyboard with hammers. He notes that a harpsichord player facing a hammer mechanism for the first time could not ‘universally at first approach play it, because it is not sufficient to know how to play perfectly upon instruments with the ordinary fingerboard, but, being a new instrument, it requires a person who, understanding its possibilities, has been working on it particularly, so as to adjust the extent of different pulses, that has to be made on the keys, and the graceful degradation in time and place, as to select the right, and delicate, things, and moreover breaking, and making the parts walk, and the subjects being heard in many places.’ The birth-pangs and growth of historically informed performance practice enable modern harpsichordists to approach the instrument forewarned and forearmed. A wide range of dynamic effects can only be created by artificial effects such as rubato, spreading the hands, varying articulation and weight and skilfully devised and executed ornamentation. All of these contribute to making the performance a creative act of rich substance. But how would a harpsichordist of Giustini’s time approached a new fortepiano? And indeed, how would he have approached Giustini’s continually varied writing for the instrument? While the style of these 12 sonatas derives to some degree from the late-Baroque language of Corelli, they also testify to a surprising surprising eclecticism, tending especially towards the new stile galante. All of this despite the fact that our author spent his life as a priest and musician within the walls of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit in his hometown, Pistoia. Born in 1685 from a family of professional musicians, he became a Jesuit at the tender age of ten, and in 1725 took on the position of congregation organist, which until then had been held by his father Francesco. So Giustini was not acquainted with the theatre or with opera, unlike many of his better-known colleagues: only one trip to Florence is documented in 1732, the year of publication of his Sonatas. The breadth of his artistic horizon is explained, instead, by the fact that the city of Pistoia was a lively centre of musical culture in its own right. Being the biggest satellite in the orbit of the Medicis, from 1694 the Tuscan town was indeed seat of the important Teatro dei Risvegliati, a spin-off of the Accademia dei Risvegliati founded in 1642 by Monsignor Felice Cancellieri,
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one of the first Italian castrati to arrive in Vienna at the Habsburg court. Pistoia alllowed Giustini to encounter different styles and languages but also musicians such as Melani and Manfredini, who kept coming back to their hometown in between their international tours. It is thus not surprising that the cosmopolitan outlook of his music should so thoroughly bely his insular lifestyle. His name began to resound beyond the borders of Tuscany after he dedicated the first Florentine edition of his collection to the brother of King John V of Portugal, Antonio di Braganza, uncle of the infanta Maria Barbara – the pupil and muse of Domenico Scarlatti – a great amateur and the first advocate of the relocation to Portugal of the Neapolitan composer. This collection of sonatas was reprinted in Amsterdam between 1741 and 1746, by the printer and organist Gerhard Fredrik Witvogel. In accordance with the simplified harmonic rules of stile galante, the key-signatures all lie between E Major and F minor, but Giustini ventures into extended modulations from time to time, and to considerable expressive effect. To the standard Baroque dance forms Giustini adds the Rondo – bipartite and so unlike the common French form based upon the alternation of couplets and refrain – and the Canzona, a 17th-century form with no counterpuntal elaboration, and only a faint memory of the original model in its typicallly repeated initial notes. Five of the sonatas have five movements, the others four, according to the scheme Adagio – Allegro – Adagio – Allegro, with the exception of the eleventh Sonata in the collection, which introduces a dreamy, exquisite cantabile, not unrelated to French style in its pronunciation and rich ornamentation. Neapolitan and quasi-operatic models can frequently be discerned, languid or lively on occasion, and in this sense, the bipartite form of most movements allows the interpreter to make his own creative contribution with all manner of improvisation and embellishment (according to the performance practice of the time) on musical material that is in itself already very rich. The twelve Sonate da cimbalo di piano e forte, highly esteemed both by virtuosi and amateurs since they were first published, were presented to Antonio di Braganza with the explanation that: ‘ in their artful consonance they represent somehow that Heavenly Harmony, which brings [...] the most rare Virtues together in sweet association’. This generous offer is one we do well to take up today. Andrea Coen, 2010 Translation: Sabrina De Carlo
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Andrea Coen (b. 1960, Rome), graduated in musicology at the Roman University of La Sapienza with a dissertation on the unpublished keyboard works of Domenico Cimarosa; he also studied harpsichord at the Royal College of Music in London. His first piano teacher was Maria Elisa Tozzi in Rome; he has also studied with leading period-performance musicians such as Ton Koopman, Daniel Chorzempa, Alan Curtis, David Collyer, Glenn Wilson and Emilia Fadini. As both a soloist on harpsichord, organ and fortepiano and in various chamber and vocal ensembles he has forged a career in Europe and the USA. He made the first complete critical edition of Cimarosa’s Keyboard Sonatas and two Piano Sextets, and of the Intavolatura di Ancona (1644). He is a member of the scientific committee of the Italian National Edition dedicated to the complete works of Muzio Clementi, the advisory board of Ad Parnassum (a journal of 18th- and 19th-century instrumental music), and he will undertake the first critical edition of L’estro poeticoarmonico by Benedetto Marcello for Brepols, Belgium. Coen has collaborated with artists like Christopher Hogwood, Monica Huggett, Aris Christofellis, Mariella Devia as well as the Ensemble Seicentonovecento (Rome), L’Arte dell’arco (Padua) and Collegium Pro Musica (Genoa). He teaches fortepiano at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome and harpsichord at L’Aquila’s State Conservatory, and is First Organist in the Basilica di San Giacomo in Augusta (Rome). Among his recordings are the complete keyboard works of Cimarosa (5CDs), the Dissertations of Veracini after Corelli, the complete oratorios of Carissimi (9CDs) and many other releases covering the Renaissance, Baroque and Classical periods. Thanks to: ENAP, Ente nazionale di assistenza e previdenza per i pittori e scultori, musicisti, scrittori ed autori drammatici; Fondazione Pergolesi Spontini, Jesi; Comune di Montecarotto; Soprintendenza Speciale per il patrimonio storico, artistico ed etnoantropologico e per il polo museale della città di Firenze; Dr. Vincenzo De Vivo; Dr. Giuliana Montanari; Dr. Cristina Acidini; M° Sabrina De Carlo; M° Flavio Colusso; M° Federico Guglielmo. Dedicated to the memory of Arrigo Quattrocchi† Pianoforte copy by Kerstin Schwarz after B. Cristofori, 1726 Recording: 2–7 February 2009, Teatro Comunale di Montecarotto (AN) Recording engineer and editing: Fabio Framba Cover: Anton Domenico Gabbiani, Ritratto del Gran Principe Ferdinando de’ Medici, ca. 1685, Galleria Palatina, Florence (with the permission of the italian Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, all rights reserved). and 2010 Brilliant Classics
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