Agostino Steffani (1654 - 1728) - "Sonate à Tre, Due Violini, Alto e Basso (1705) - Sonata I

"Sonate à Tre, Due Violini, Alto e Basso (1705) - Sonata I "Ouverture de l'Opera d'Orlando" - Agostino Steffani (1654 - 1728). Centaurus Music Studio Recording "Agostino Steffani - Sonate à Tre, Due Violini, Alto e Basso" - WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING - ℗ 2000 © Luca Casagrande Scarlatti Camera Ensemble Artistic Director and Producer Luca Casagrande. I. Ouverture de l’Opera d’Orlando II. Prelude tres viste III. Autre Prelude, presto e staccato IV. Gavotte V. Passepied viste VI. Chaconne VII. Menuet VIII. Gigue IX. Rondeau gay X. Air vivace XI. Gigue XII. Menuet XIII. Bourrée XIV. Gavotte en Rondeau XV. Entrée Alternativement avec le Trio suivant XVI. Trio XVII. Entrée (XV ripetuto). The Chamber Sonatas by Agostino Steffani were published in the early 1700’s by the Dutch editor, Estienne Roger. Steffani’s Sonatas are usually classified as “instrumental music”. Really there are elements in these pieces that make them blatantly different from that which is currently called “instrumental.” The six suites are in fact taken from overtures, from the refrains, and from the dances of Steffani’s six musical dramas. Each one of the six sonatas bears an opening quote that refers to the six titles author’s theatrical operas: Ouverture de l’Opera d’Orlando (1691), Ouverture de l’Opera Henricus Leo (1689), Ouverture de l’Opera d’Alexander (1690), Ouverture de l’Opera Gli Rivali Concordi (1692), Ouverture de l’Opera d’Alcibiades (1693) and Ouverture de l’Opera Gli Triomphi del Fato (1695). Most of the parts of the Sonatas have been found to be contained in each of the works cited, but some are not, probably because they refer to the music of the dances in Steffani’s six musical dramas, ballets that often were not included in the scores of the operas, all of which are held in the British Library in London. It is completely pertinent, in our opinion, to propose the Sonatas in four real parts: two violins, viola and basso continuo – a keyboard and string instrument – since, for example, the the preface advises doubling the first violin and other parts. Moreover, as here and there the bassoon and the oboe are suggested, it does not seem that the classical string orchestra formation is the ideal vehicle for the music of these Sonatas, doubled or as an alternative to the strings. Classified by recent scholars as “alla francese” – in the French manner – because originally these Sonatas were parts of musical dramas close to the French musical culture and they require “an outward appearance and a seriousness far removed from that which characterized the large part of Italian works ("all’italiana") of that time”, as affirmed in the preface of the critical edition of the Sonatas edited by the Fondazione Levi, Venice, 1996. We are of a different opinion: Agostino Steffani was beyond all doubt an Italian composer, with an Italian education and above all author of Italian musical dramas that were transplanted to German soil. Dramas that were destined to be represented in the greatest, most important and most advanced theatre in Europe at that time, the one in Hannover, (and at least from 1689 on) frequented by an international audience and therefore undoubtedly, but certainly not prevalently influenced by French musical culture. The fact is that the librettos and the themes staged and the dances were translated into German and into French is due to who they were intended for, and certainly not for a “French style”. A style Steffani did not have and did not ever cultivate as a predominant, constructive element in his musical production. Nor is it sufficient to suggest that the appearance of the so-called “French treble clef”, with the note G on the first line of the pentagram in alternative to the soprano clef, in almost all - but not all - of the parts intended for the first violin in the London manuscripts is a confirmation of the “French” character of these Sonatas and the other works of the castellan composer. Steffani also uses the “French treble clef”, for example, in those parts intended for the flutes in cantatas such as "Lagrime dolorose." Anyhow, in the printed edition the traditional treble clef is used. Therefore, even in the case of the Chamber Sonatas, Agostino Steffani must be seen and recognized as ambassador of Italian music in Europe. (Luca Casagrande)