95027
Cimarosa Complete 88 Keyboard Sonatas
David Boldrini fortepiano
Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801) CD1 77’54 1 Sonata No.45 – Allegro 1’05 2 Sonata No.11 1’11 3 Sonata No.68 – Allegro 1’05 4 Sonata No.37 – Andantino 1’37 5 Sonata No.12 – Allegro 1’00 6 Sonata No.9 0’50 7 Sonata No.33 – Andantino 1’08 8 Sonata No.32 – Allegro 0’57 9 Sonata No.77 – Perfidia 2’56 10 Sonata No.70 – Andantino 2’19 11 Sonata No.71 – Allegro 4’59 12 Sonata No.24 0’59 13 Sonata No.69 – Maestoso 2’17 14 Sonata No.34 – Allegro 1’12 15 Sonata No.80 – Allegro alla francese 2’02 16 Sonata No.1 – Allegro 1’30 17 Sonata No.64 – Andantino 1’29 18 Sonata No.47 – Allegro 2’08 19 Sonata No.18 – Allegro 1’02 20 Sonata No.79 – Andante con moto 1’47 21 Sonata No.62 – Allegro 1’28 22 Sonata No.21 – Allegro 1’22 23 Sonata No.23 1’38 2
24 Sonata No.28 25 Sonata No.29 26 Sonata No.30 27 Sonata No.31 – Allegro 28 Sonata No.38 – Allegro 29 Sonata No.39 – Allegro 30 Sonata No.40 – Allegro 31 Sonata No.67 – Andantino grazioso 32 Sonata No.41 – Allegro 33 Sonata No.43 – Allegro 34 Sonata No.44 – Allegro 35 Sonata No.54 – Allegro 36 Sonata No.59 – Allegro 37 Sonata No.60 – Allegro 38 Sonata No.63 – Allegro 39 Sonata No.65 – Allegro 40 Sonata No.74 – Largo 41 Sonata No.75 42 Sonata No.76 – Rondò – Allegro 43 Sonata No.82 44 Sonata No.87 – Allegro moderato 45 Sonata No.88 – Allegro
2’17 2’20 1’31 0’57 0’55 1’09 1’03 1’53 0’58 0’56 1’24 1’52 2’15 2’25 1’22 1’55 2’49 2’29 1’39 1’03 2’13 4’01
CD2 70’19 1 Sonata No.8 1’26 2 Sonata No. 6 0’45 3 Sonata No.51 – Allegro 1’09 4 Sonata No.2 – Andantino 0’54 5 Sonata No.3 – Minuè 1’06 6 Sonata No.22 – Andante 1’22 7 Sonata No.5 0’58 8 Sonata No.55 – Largo 1’27 9 Sonata No.48 – Allegro 1’14 10 Sonata No.61 – Largo 2’28 11 Sonata No.84 – Rondò 0’51 12 Sonata No.85 – Maestoso 4’58 13 Sonata No.36 – Allegro 0’59 14 Sonata No.13 0’30 15 Sonata No.83 – Maestoso 2’42 16 Sonata No.10 1’31 17 Sonata No.15 0’34 18 Sonata No.14 1’07 19 Sonata No.66 – Allegro 1’18 20 Sonata No.58 – Andantino grazioso 1’04 21 Sonata No.4 – Allegretto 1’24 22 Sonata No.7 1’38 23 Sonata No.16 – Andante 1’05 24 Sonata No.17 – Andante 0’49
25 Sonata No.19 26 Sonata No.20 – Andante 27 Sonata No.53 – Allegro 28 Sonata No.25 – Andante 29 Sonata No.50 – Allegro 30 Sonata No.26 – Largo 31 Sonata No.27 – Allegro 32 Sonata No.73 – Allegro 33 Sonata No.46 – Andantino 34 Sonata No.49 – Larghetto 35 Sonata No.35 – Allegro 36 Sonata No.52 – Andantino 37 Sonata No.56 – Allegro 38 Sonata No.57 – Allegro 39 Sonata No.42 – Andantino 40 Sonata No.78 – Allegro brioso 41 Sonata No.72 – Allegro 42 Sonata No.86 – Andante grazioso 43 Sonata No.81 – Allegro
0’56 1’38 2’22 1’32 0’59 1’32 1’27 1’56 0’52 1’38 1’21 2’10 2’39 1’30 1’04 3’13 3’19 3’02 3’24
David Boldrini fortepiano
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Fortepiano Sonatas During his lifetime, Domenico Cimarosa (Anvers 1749–Venezia 1801) enjoyed a popular and prestigious reputation amongst his peers, esteemed by Rossini and garnering praise from such eminent Europeans as Goethe and Stendhal. But, as has often happened, he has almost disappeared from the pages of history, and in Cimarosa we see a curious case of a damnatio memoriae—the damnation of memory. From all of his prodigious output, only Il Matrimonio Segreto (The Secret Wedding) remains in the contemporary repertoire. This is an undeniable operatic masterpiece, where the maestro demonstrated his musical expertise and dexterity. At its premiere in the Burgtheater of Vienna, on February 7th, 1792, the work ‘brought the house down’, and the watching Emperor Leopold II was so enraptured by it that he demanded an immediate encore, from beginning to end. Despite this, his reputation today in most music history manuals is seemingly confined to the furthest recesses of Neopolitan Opera, along with Paisiello and Piccinni, with most musicians and music lovers believing he was dedicated to mere melodrama. It’s undeniable that his most interesting works are set in musical theatre, and that as an opera composer he was an ‘overpaid European celebrity’, but this is to ignore the richness of his artistic production. He was a versatile and prolific composer and history ought to be more generous in granting him a deserved significance for having transformed the character of Neopolitan Opera, from comic farce into passionate turmoil, and developing the form into a musically fresh and theatrically expressive landscape. Until recently it has not been possible to precisely define his entire corpus, but it is now being realised that his output was substantial: ninety-nine lyric operas, around fifty sacred works (masses, oratorios, psalms, motets), about thirty vocal chamber compositions, two symphonies, two concertos, six quartets, two sextets, eighty-two fortepiano sonatas, six harpsichord sonatas and many more minor works. Cimarosa was a proficient violinist and a harpsichord virtuoso, and he 4
would sit at the keyboard, accompany the recitatives and elaborate the figured bass (basso continuo) during his own opera staging. The music on this CD comprises all eighty-two fortepiano sonatas, and the six harpsichord sonatas, but all played here on the fortepiano. The manuscripts of the eighty-two pieces have been loaned by Abramo Basevi, from the Library of the Conservatory of Music Luigi Cherubini in Florence. Titled Various Sonatas Collection for Fortepiano, Composed by Mr. Cimarosa, they are bound across two books (Book I: pp.1-87, numb. 1-50; Book II: pp. 89-175, numb. 51-82) and are catalogued with Extremely Rare Italian Music of the XIXth Century. They were conceived expressly for fortepiano and not harpsichord. The first specialist in modern times to deem them worthy of consideration was Carlo Boghen, who selected thirty-two of the sonatas and published them in Paris in 1926.(1) To the eighty-two Florentine titles are added six harpsichord sonatas from a manuscript “for Mrs. D. Norina Anguilli’s use”, which is kept at the Library of the Milan Conservatory. All that remains of Cimarosa’s keyboard work is collected in these manuscripts. It is remarkable that in his monumental volume on Italian Sonatas in the XIXth Century(2), Fausto Terrafranca saw fit to not only give no consideration to these works, but to completely omit Cimarosa from his list of composers writing for keyboard instruments. Aside from the Boghen edition, it wasn’t until 1970 that a methodical study of these sonatas began, thanks to the interest of Vincenzo Vitale. With Carlo Bruno, the influential Neopolitan conceives an edition with a practical didactic purpose, where argotic and dynamic considerations are not spared. We owe to them the first ‘clean’ edition of Cimarosa’s keyboard works, quite distinct from Boghen’s own deturpation, but, despite these efforts, the Cimarosa Sonatas remain largely unknown today. It is impossible here to examine each of the eighty-eight pieces, but we can reflect on the genesis and fortunes of them, their formal and stylistic characteristics, and 5
contextualise them in relation to the composer’s life, with the intention of creating a vade mecum for the the listener. The first important consideration is the form: the pieces are all rather short. All the sonatas seem to be of one movement, and they remind us of the structure used by Scarlatti, but in many cases they might have been conceived as two or even three movement sonatas. According to a dubious translation, introduced by Alessandro Longo, in Scarlatti’s Review, and in an article published as a work of presentation(3), Boghen ignores the original order of the manuscript. He groups the sonatas by tempo, thereby disregarding the cyclic relations that unite them, and assumes that each is a standalone piece, by the modern numeration of the Florentine manuscript. Conversely it is also difficult to comprehend with certainty the cyclic distributions that Cimarosa intended, which are perhaps even more unstable than those of Scarlatti. Giorgio Pistelli justifies the Venice/Parma/Vienna and Munster ordering in couples, but also observes that “we must recognise (...) that the coupling of Scarlatti’s sonatas have nothing of consistence, and represent merely the desire to order them for compilation in regal books—the Scarlatti sonatas remain resolutely single tempo.” This statement is valid for the works here, with the difference that we should think of these as groups of three. If we think “optional” instead of “significant” in the order of each piece in the Florentine Conservatory collection, we can explain the undeniable fact that almost two-thirds of the pieces naturally collect into cycles of three movements, and the remaining ones have nothing to do with those immediately following or preceding and it’s inappropriate to begin a reconstruction of hypothetical sonatas by removing the dispersion of wrong pieces through delicate sorting. Vitale and Bruno, in addition to their own sonata numbering, quote in parenthesis the manuscript numbering, and in some cases it is respected, and we understand that, for example, the XXII-XXIV sonatas (66-68 of the manuscript) are one sonata in C minor in three periods (Allegro in C, Andantino grazioso in E flat in 3/4, and Allegro in 6/8). Since there is no chronological unity, or composing 6
occasion or dedications, it is completely missing a formal unity and to ensure a real critical edition we would need a very long work and a historical contextualization of each page. In the Florentine sonatas, the most common are the bipartite type without development. It is curious that when the author puts the closing bar lines after the exposition, he does not mark the refrain sign, as the Italian harpsichord players were usually doing. Many sonatas are in a rondò form, a structure typical of the so-called second gallant style, and that schematic construction is missing in Cimarosa. Lorenzo Bianconi maintains that in the Florentine manuscript, in addition to the modern paging, at the end of each piece a progressive numeration more or less regular is noted every two or four or more units: it seems to reflect the paging of the two original books used for the draft of the Florentine’s copy, that must have had respectively 134 and 146 pages. From such evidence we can deduce that the order of the pieces of the Florentine books is the original, not an imposed posthumous order given at the Florentine manuscript draft.(5) Furthermore, we note from the antique paging rather than the modern one, how thirty-two sonatas from the second book are, overall, longer than fifty of the first book: in effect the most complex, extensive and virtuoso of the eighty-two sonatas are situated at the end of the Florentine volumes. From the compositional standpoint it may be useful for the listener to group the sonatas in sets, according to precise stylistic and technical characteristics. Generally, from the viewpoint of style, indications (often suggested by the author) are mostly Allegro, Andantino and Larghetto. Among these eighty-eight titles we identify a group of about thirty with a strong late-Baroque inspiration, some with an essentially toccata character, and all full of rhythmic and harmonic inventiveness, very distant in style from the genuine classic taste of the grand opera. Most of these sonatas are written in the form of A-A-B-B and these pieces seem 7
influenced by the homonymous title of Francesco Durante, known to Cimarosa through his studies with Fedele Fenaroli and admired, years later, for having associated with Antonio Sacchini. The biggest group is formed by at least forty sonatas that when listened to call to mind a typical Italian theatre, and we can envisage sitting in a box seat watching an opera. We immediately perceive that the inspiring and characterizing elements are authentic melodramatic moments: we encounter the sonata which is the symphony before the opera; the sonata that recalls a character’s cavatina and cabaletta; the love duet; the concerted comic and, finally, the effervescent Neapolitan tradition. Another interesting group is the didactic work: especially the melodic “studietti” (little studies) of keyboard technique that favour the technical and virtuoso aspects. We also identify an homage to the sacred music of the Pergolesi tradition with elaborate counterpoint and formal fantasy, and we see some sonatas that present melodical elements typical of late Classicism, conceived in a tripartite A-B-A musical form. With the pieces in sonata form, Cimarosa is following the Italian tradition, substantially different to Mozart or Haydn. In the Middle-European terms, a proper development is missing: even when we see something similar, it is hardly ever a rhythmic, harmonic and tonal change of theme fragments, but instead, as Elena Ferrari Barassi justly affirms: “...a theme or cue is entirely obscured by a proportion that it rhythmically resembles, so it gives rise to melodical outcomes sometimes remotely related with other exposition motifs (...), or a composite idea is presented, made by elements derived by the first and second theme, continuing in an independent melodical discourse; and sometimes the first idea reappears in its integrity, exposed at the dominant.”(6) It is interesting to observe that certain central episodes markedly use the minor modality (modo minore), often reached through daring modulations. Cimarosa’s harpsichord sonatas are six pieces in the same tempo, and for energy 8
and rhythmic grab do not differ much from the titles preserved in Florence, even if in this case the use of the alberti bass (basso albertino) is excessive and contains, by Bianconi’s quote, “the excessive blandness of the eternal female rhythms”.(7) In almost all of these compositions it is appropriate to note the relative inactivity of the left hand, which hardly ever plays an harmonic accompaniment, according to an all Italian characteristic that claims an absolute dominance of the melodical part rather then the harmonious and instrumental, leading the composer and music critic Andrè Grètry to point out, not without a little vis polemica, that: “Cimarosa puts the statue on the theatre and the pedestal in the orchestra, where Mozart puts the statue in the orchestra and the pedestal in the theatre”.(8) Some of these eighty-eight sonatas have little inventiveness and appear no more than simple exercises, just recycled opera fragments that have nothing in common with similar titles by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and disappearing behind Mozart or Beethoven. There are some that in the language and technical reviews appear much less efficient, rich and interesting then Carl Czerny’s best studies. Despite these criticisms, every page is characterized by an obvious sense of melody, by a skilfull use of harmony and by a formal refinement typical only of important composers. They are exquisite and delightful pieces, painted by never disturbing notes and always in a balanced and discrete form. The melody is incredibly gentle and spontaneous, joyful and deeply human and has an effect of great immediacy and precision, instantly stimulating the most sincere sentiment. These sonatas mark one of the high points in the desire for Clarte (clarity), the most concrete of Illuministic ambitions. Cimarosa at fortepiano represents the highest expression of Mozartian Classicism, and not without a little Mediterranean ingenuity. They are of a marked formal disposition and the listener is seduced by the genuine simplicity of the music flow. Cimarosa is definitely not a sonata innovator, nor does he feel the influence of Haydn, Mozart or Clementi’s new forms: he remains loyal to his homeland tradition, with a schematic absence substituted by various models or by 9
new formal inventions. The Abate Bertini reviews the opera in words that perfectly adapt even to these keyboard pages: “Listening to each piece of his music we see that the score was made with oestrus and written in one spurt”. This is the proof of the global artistic approach that, even when the composer is not writing opera, does not betray his spirit and vocation. In effect the “environmental” constant of these works remains the world of our traditional theatre, with its characters, colors and moods. Francesco Florimo tells us that Mattia Vento, a farly well-known Neapolitan harpsichord player from the same Santa Maria a Loreto Conservatory where Cimarosa was schooled, more than any other compares, by taste and style to Cimarosa, even if he precedes him by almost a generation. The similarities between the two extend from the bipartite structure, sometimes tripartite, between jigs and rondò, and meet in the typical musical immediacy of the Southern Tradition. It is difficult to set Cimarosa in a style and, if it’s universally accepted that Vento is set in the Second Gallant style, such definition could also suit Cimarosa. Terrafranca states that Vento often builds an open architecture, where the empty stands out from the full, where the theme flows freely, sustained by a light but stable alberti bass (basso albertino) that gives a rare grace. The rhythm and the themes, which form from the melting arpeggio, seem to betray in certain cases symphonic aspirations, which then crumble into an excessive harpsichordal melodic refinement. It is not easy to locate plausible dates for the Florentine sonatas: we merely dare to say they were composed after 1787 as Cimarosa’s homage to Granduca Leopoldo II, after visiting Florence and probably during his idle years at San Pietroburgo, in Caterina la Grande’s court, from 1787 to 1791. To further support this hypothesis it is certain that the Maestro returned from Russia with an Adam Beyer fortepiano (London, 1780), today kept at the Naples Conservatory at San Pietroburgo a Majella. The Milanese sonatas conform to a few formal details that we observe in the melodrama symphony Le astuzie femminili (The Female Cleverness) of 1794. 10
The melodic themes resemble the symphony Artemisia of 1801, and for these reasons it may be correct to place them between these two dates. Another question to ask is what public Cimarosa looked to. Certainly he turned to nobles, and the bourgeois and dames that constituted cultural life. Fortepiano and pianoforte spread quickly at this time, with an attendant amateurism: many middle to low players claimed a repertoire they could contend with, challenge, and entertain, quickly shadowing the virtuoso aristocrat figure, who up till then had been one of the cornerstones of the clientele and divulgation of instrumental music. This is the reason for his sometimes so predictable melodies, such elementary accompaniments and an excessive use of alberti bass (basso Albertino) that, aside from some control of the touch, does not need any technical refinement. Cimarosa’s last years were not easy, but he did participate in the first revolutionary uprisings that in the following century characterized the so-called Italian Risorgimento. During the Neapolitan Republic of 1799, Cimarosa joined the liberal party and fought against the monarchy, but with the return of the Borbone, like many othes, he was arrested and condemned to death. Because of a few influential admirers, the sentence was commuted to exile. He left his beloved Naples, intending to go to San Pietroburgo, but his health by now was poor, and he settled in Venice, where, within the walls of Palazzo Duomo, he died on January 11th, 1801 with an aggravated intestinal inflammation. In 1920 the Italian Carlo Emilio Gadda attended the Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Wedding) at the Teatro La Scale and wrote afterwards probably the most fitting definition of the spirit, the art and the humanity of Domenico Cimarosa, both for his opera and instrumental music: “An example pleasantly claiming the loving choice, freedom and need to love, (...) a gentle and passionate vibration. The antique campano paganism, the mindful lament of the reed flutes and the timpani parties, are still ignoring the Romanticist torment, the cymbal: an unexpected sneeze, bless you!!! The sob and blow of the twisting drama. He almost frees 11
himself from the essence of those perfumed corolla, it spreads in the air brought at the Golf’s ephemera, with people’s lost heartbeat, under the evening’s irresistible sky, of the night.” The eighty-eight sonatas that you are about to listen are played on a Johann Schantz fortepiano, Vienna, 1799, kindly offered by the Bartolomeo Cristofori Academy of Florence, and a copy of an Anton Walter given by Bartok Studio of Bernareggio, Milan. © Lorenzo Ancillotti
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1. D. Cimarosa, 32 Sonates recuillies et publiées pour la première fois par F. Boghen, doigtées par I. Philipp, Paris, 1925-1926. 2. F. Torrefranca, Le origini italiane del Romanticismo musicale. I primitivi della sonata moderna, Torino, 1930. 3. C. F. Boghen, Sonates de Cimarosa pour le fortepiano, in «Revue Musicale», V (1924), 9. 4. G. Pestelli, Le sonate di Domenico Scarlatti, proposta di un ordinamento cronologico, Torino, 1967. 5. L. Bianconi, Le “sonate” per il fortepiano di Domenico Cimarosa, in «Rivista italiana di Musicologia», VIII (1973), 2. 6. E. Ferrari Barassi, Cimarosa clavicembalista in Scritti in onore di Luigi Ronga, Milano-Napoli, 1973. 7. Id. 8. A. Grétry, Voyages, études et travaux de A.-M. Grétry racontés par lui-même, Paris, 1889. 9. G. Bertini, Dizionario storico critico degli scrittori di musica, Palermo, 1815. 10. F. Florimo, La scuola musicale di Napoli e i suoi Conservatori, Napoli, 1882 11. C. E. Gadda, Le meraviglie d’Italia. Gli anni, Torino, 1964
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David Boldrini is an eclectic Italian musician who alternates the role of pianist, conductor, composer and organist. He’s graduated with honor in Piano, in Organ and Composition to Conservatory of music “L. Cherubini” of Florence. He’s refined with teachers like Bruno Canino, Vincenzo Balzani, Paul Badura Sckoda, Pier Narciso Masi. He had won more than fifty Italian and International competitions and he has began his carreer like chamber pianist, playing with Katia Ricciarelli, Andrea Bocelli, Maria Luigi Borsi, Bruno Canino, Paolo Chiavacci, Franco Mezzena and with ensembles like Bacau Orchestra, Craiova Orchestra, Maggio Musicale Formazione, Orchestra Lirico-Sinfonica del teatro del Giglio di Lucca, Viotti Chamber Orchestra, UANL Orchestra di Monterrey, Baskent University Orchestra of Ankara. He has played on tournée in very important theaters like Carnegie Hall of New York, CRR Concert Hall of Istanbul, Accademia Filarmonica Romana, Teatro di Chiasso, Kioko Hall of Tokyo, Kunstlerhaus of Munich, Centro Studi “Ferruccio Busoni” of Empoli, Schloss Ribbek Festival (Berlin). He’s dedicated to Italian opera as conductor and correpetitor. David Boldrini is also an esteemed composer whose works for piano and for orchestra have been performed in many festivals and concert’s seasons. Recently he has recorded for the label Amadeus and Wide Classique and he is Artistic Director of Italian Opera Florence. 14
Thanks to: Elena Pinciaroli for art direction Raffaele Cacciola and staff of Bartokstudio Rodolfo Alessandrini, Stefano Fiuzzi for having kindly granted the premises of the museum Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori of Florence and the prestigious Schantz fortepiano (Vienna ca. 1800) Veronica Giuntoli and Lorenzo Ancillotti for curing Introductory Notes
Recording: 21-25 September 2014, Bartokstudio, Bernareggio, Italy (CD2 tr. 1-40), 20-22 October 2014 “Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori” in Florence, Italy (CD1, CD2 tr. 41-43) Producer & engineer: Raffaele Cacciola Editing and mastering: Bartokstudio Fortepiano: CD1, CD2 tr.41-43: on the original Schantz fortepiano at “Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori”, Florence; CD2 tr. 1-40: on a copy of Anton Walter Cover image: Francesco Saverio Candido, Portrait of Domenico Cimarosa. Museo Nazionale di San Martino Naples - & © 2015 Brilliant Classics
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