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Italian Guitar Music in the second half of the eighteenth century. © Copyright 2007 by Matanya Ophee First of all, I would like to ask your indulgence towards my faulty pronunciation of this beautiful language. The role of Italy in creating much of the repertoire of the classical guitar in the nineteenth century is well established and does not require superfluous accolades. This is not a lecture in the traditional sense, but rather a search for understanding a period in the history of the guitar in Italy, the second half of the eighteenth century, on which little information is available, and often enough, there are a few conflicting scholarly judgments about it. For example, Carlo Carfagna and Alberto Caprani told us in1966: Dopo questi autori [Roncalli, Granata etc], il Settecento : è la crisi. Autori di talento non capiscono la chitarra e, incapaci di scrivere per essa, contribuiscono al suo decadimento sia pure in maniera indiretta. [ After Roncalli, Granata etc, during the eighteenth century, there is a crisis: talented authors do not understand the guitar and, unable to write for it, contributing to its decline albeit indirectly. My Translation]. a A more recent writer, Mario Torta, gave us, almost twenty years ago, a different point of view: La seconda metà del XVIII secolo fu il periodo decisivo per la formazione della chitarra moderna, che passerà dall'accordatura per cori all'accordatura per corde singole, da una letteratura d'intrattenimento, leggera, ad un repertorio di rilevante impegno virtuosistico. Il sensibile mutamento di gusto attorno alla metà del secolo creò le basi per una ripresa dell'interesse ufficiale nei suoi confronti. [ The second half of the eighteenth century was the decisive period for the formation of the modern guitar, when the tuning in double-strung courses was changed to single stringing, and when the light literature of entertainment, became a repertoire of a remarkable virtuosic impact. The significant change in taste around the middle of the century created the basis for a revival of official interest in it. My Translation]b While it is easy to dismiss the pronouncements of the earlier writers, basing our conclusions on the tremendous amount of information that came to light since the publication of the CarfagnaCaprani book, one finds it a bit more problematic to understand what repertoire of a remarkable virtuosic impact of the period under discussion Maestro Torta is referring to. Hence, the two quotations remain in direct opposition of each other. Of course, we do know by now that quite a a b
C. Carfagna, A. Caprani, profilo Storico della Chitarra, Bèrben, Ancona: 1966, p. 37
MARIO TORTA, Ferdinando Carulli (1770-1841). Profilo biograficocritico e catalogo tematico delle opere con numero (con cenni sulla formazione della chitarra esacorde ed elementi di metodologia bibliografica), diss., Roma, Università degli Studi La Sapienza, 1988-89. Vol. I p. 14.
Page 2 of 13 bit of guitar music was published in Spain and in France, some of it even by Italian composers. But what about Italy? It seems to me that drawing any conclusions from the available evidence, must always remain tentative, leaving the possibility that what we know today, does not reflect precisely the historical situation as it really was. For all we know, the number of compositions we know about, is only a small portion of what was actually composed and published. Paper is a fragile commodity that has a habit of disappearing during wars, revolutions and other social and economic upheavals. But some of the published repertoire sometimes reappears, and in the most unlikely places. For example, here is a catalogue of the works of Federico Moretti that was attached to the Neapolitan 1804 edition of his Principij:
Notice that this is only an advertisement of music che successivamente si daranno alla luce, [that will be published successively] and with the exception of the first item, the book in which this advertisement is contained, the music, obviously composed a long time before 1804, was not yet published. As far as I know, only two items from this catalogue, the Tré Rondeaux Opus 3, and the Tré Thema con variazioni per chitarra sola Opus 5, were published in London by Clementi circa1812. Where is all the rest of it? The concerti? The chamber music? So in trying to understand the actual situation at the time, we must examine other areas of musical activity. Much has been made by several researchers on the phenomenon of Italian guitar making by people like Fabricatore and others making six string guitars. That there was a demand for such instruments we already know from the following passage in Moretti’s 1792 Principij: Per rendere questi miei principj il più che si poteva generali gli ho adattati alla Chitarra a cinque corde, per esser questa la più usata da pertutto. La precauzione che ho presa di non impiegare il pollice sù la quinta corda rende per altro quest'opera egualmente utile a chi voglia far uso di Chitarra a sei Corde ... [I made these my principles as the most adaptable to the five-string guitar, because this is the guitar mostly used everywhere. I've taken the precaution of not using the [LH!] thumb
Page 3 of 13 on the fifth string so as to make this work equally useful to those wishing to make use of Six String Guitar ... My translation] We also know that Italian guitar culture was highly developed by the activity of Italian guitarists in many European cultural centers during the period under discussion. We know about Giacomo Merchi and Antonio Albanese in Paris, Carlo Canobbio and Giuseppe Sarti in Russia. The music of Merchi is well known. Less well known is the fact that the castrato Albanese also composed and published guitar music.
Here is, for example, a Sonata for guitar and violin by Albanese published in Paris circa 1767.
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Russia in the eighteenth century was one of the strongest magnets for many musicians from all over Europe. The effort to open Russian culture to Western influences which began with Peter the Great at the beginning of the eighteenth century and continued with his successors to the throne, particularly Catherine the Great, herself a German princess in origin, and later on in the century by the Empress Elizaveta Alexeevna, the wife of Czar Alexander I, also a German princess. Many Italian composers came to Russia, among which the names of Paisiello, Galuppi, Cimarosa, Sarti are well known, and they were employed not only by royalty, but also in the private households of many important Nobles and princes. The greatest role of Italian music in Russia in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries was that when a Russian school of music began to develop, it was clearly based on Italian models. The veneziano Carlo Canobbio came to Russia in 1779, where he composed and produced several operas and ballets. At a certain point he became known as a teacher of the mandolin and the guitar, and is reputed to have been the private guitar teacher for the three daughters of Czar Pavel I. Here is a fragment from a manuscript by Canobbio of his Theme and variations on La Folia di Spagna:
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In 1797 Canobbio published in St. Petersburg, with the publishers Gerstenberg et Ditmars, a set of six sonatas for violin and guitar.
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There is one interesting graphic detail on this title page:
While the music of the six sonatas is clearly intended for the five-string guitar, the design of the guitar on this vignette shows a guitar with six strings.
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It is not surprising that the composer chose a Fandango as the subject matter for this sonata. Before coming to Russia, Carlo Canobbio spent some time in Madrid. Perhaps the most astounding revelation regarding Italian guitarists in Russia is in the memoirs of the Countess Varvara Nikolaevna Golovina,c
c
https://archive.org/details/souvenirsdelacom00golouoft
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a close friend of the Empress Elizaveta Alexeevna and the owner of one of the leading musical salons in St. Peterburg. She reminisced in her memoirs on the visits to her salon by Giuseppe Sarti, who came to entertain her playing the guitar. She did not say what exactly Sarti played for her, but the mere fact that one of the most important Italian operatic composers in the second half of the eighteenth century was proficient enough on the guitar to be able to entertain the nobility in their houses on that instrument, should tell us that the guitar was an important part of musical culture back home. In Italy. Some Italian guitarists who went to Russia, seem to have disappeared from the history of the guitar in Italy.
This gentleman is Pascuale Gagliani, a guitarist who was quite popular in St. Petersburg during
Page 9 of 13 the first years of the nineteenth century. He was employed for a while as the private teacher of the Empress Elizaveta Alexeevna, and even published in Russia a set of six etudes for guitar dedicated to her. This portrait was attached to the edition. Adding this information to that we already have on the numerous Italian guitarists who went to other major cultural centers in Europe, Giuliani, Bevilaqua, Bortholazzi, Bathioli, Calegari, Costa in Vienna, Carulli, Carcassi, Molino, Volpato, Legnani in Paris, Sagrini, Sola, Verini in London, Zani de Ferranti in Brussels, we can easily accept Maestro Torta’s assertion that “...The second half of the eighteenth century was the decisive period for the formation of the modern guitar...”. Obviously, the names mentioned above belong to guitarists who have made their name known in the first decades of the nineteenth century. But we cannot accept the notion that they acquired their guitar skills completely independent of a rich and varied musical culture in which they grew up. We are told that Carulli was self-taught. We were also told that Mauro Giuliani received his training in guitar and cello from a certain Gaetano Lucci. We still do not know what exactly was the educational background of other Italian guitarists that must have acquired their practical and compositional skills during the last decades of the eighteenth century. The conclusion by Messrs. Carfagna ed Caprani that the same period under discussion represented a decline, must be based on the observable lack of published compositions and unpublished manuscripts containing serious instrumental music dating from the time. Surely, there are many manuscripts in Italian libraries of songs with guitar accompaniment, and as Maestro Torta pointed out, some simple sonatinas used for didactical purposes. But no large scale instrumental compositions on a virtuosic level. A poignant exception to this are the many manuscripts of guitar music by Paganini that are now archived at the Casanatense library in Rome. Paganini, as we were told by Hector Berlioz, never published this music during his life time, preferring to keep them to himself, for use in private chamber music sessions with friends. The story of the provenance of the Paganini collection of manuscripts is a fascinating one. We are lucky that it did survive. But we cannot avoid noting that for all we know, other guitar virtuosi of the time had exactly the same proprietary attachment to their best works as Paganini, electing to not share them with anyone. And then they were lost forever. What has not been lost are private collections of manuscripts collected by some distinguished dilettanti for their own private use. One such collector was a Danish sculptor named Bertel Thorvaldsen.
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After completed his studies in Denmark, he was granted a Royal stipend, enabling him to complete his studies in Rome, where he arrived in1797 and where he lived for forty years. His work can be found in most of the important museums all over the world. Here is for example, his sculpture of the Le Tre Grazie from the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milano.
The Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen of course has many of his sculptures. It also has in its archives several items related to Thorvaldsen’s personal life. One of these items is a book of music manuscripts, containing several hundred pages of music for guitar solo, duos for two guitars, guitar
Page 11 of 13 and violin and the first violin part for symphonies by Giuseppe Gazaniga, Giuseppe Mosca, Cristoforo Gluck, Domenico Cimarosa and Sebastiano Nasolini. The guitar music in this enormous treasure is attributed to Pietro Carlo Gugliemi, Ferdinando Paër, Nicolo Boccomini, Giuseppe Pasquoli, a certain Nardini (probably the violinist Pietro Nardini), a certain Moretti, Agostino Accorimboni, Camillo Aureli, Ferdinando Carulli, and someone named Carullo. The quality of the pieces varies from the mundane to the sublime. Not all the pieces in the manuscript lend themselves to easy deciphering. Here is for example, the image of a xerox copy of one of the pages:
This is of course a fairly common rendition of a similar formula repeated by Carulli many times in his enormous output. Here is another treatment of the same C Major chord, but this time in what appears to be an orchestral presentation:
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Playing through this music, one gets the impression that this is actually an early example of minimalism, though, I am quite sure, Steve Reich and Philip Glass did not get their inspiration from Carulli. I must admit that I have only looked at the actual manuscript in the Copenhagen Museum for only a few moments, and that was many years ago. My knowledge of it is based on an incomplete set of photocopies, which are difficult to read. From what I have seen so far, I would say that this duo:
An arrangement of a Sinfonia by Domenico Cimarosa for two guitars by Camillo Aureli, is one of
Page 13 of 13 the more interesting pieces in the collection. I make this judgment not only on the basis of the unusual choice of key, B-flat Major, but on the mere fact that an arrangement for two guitars of a piece by a major composer in the last few decades of the eighteenth cnetury, would be the clearest indication of a vibrant and active guitar culture. I want to know more about Signor Aureli and about his contemporaries, those who have contributed to the private diletto of a foreign artist living in their midst. The Thorvaldsen Manuscript is not exactly a new discovery. It was already described in detail by Hans Neeman in an article in Acta Musicologica in 1932. The only study of it that I know of, is a recording made two years ago by the Danish guitarist Ingolf Olsen.
The title of the CD is misleading. This is not the guitar music of Bertel Thorvaldsen, but guitar music by Carullo, Guglielmi, Boccomini, Accorimboni, Cimarosa and Carulli, all of them Italian composers. It was simply collected by Thorvaldsen. It is time for this treasure trove of Italian guitar music to be studied in depth, preferably by a young Italian scholar who can help us have a better understanding of this fascinating period in the history of the guitar in Italy.
