The Italian Cantata in Vienna

Lawrence Bennett

Description

Composing and performing for the Habsburgs

Lawrence Bennett provides a comprehensive study of the rich repertoire of accompanied vocal chamber music that entertained the imperial family in Vienna and their guests throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries. The cantata became a form of elite entertainment composed to amuse listeners during banquets or pay homage to members of the royal family during special occasions. Concentrating on Baroque cantatas composed in the Habsburg court, Bennett draws extensively on primary source material to explore the stylistic changes that occurred within the genre in the generations before Haydn and Mozart.

Preface
List of Bibliographical Abbreviations
List of RISM Sigla
1. Introduction
The Role of Music in the Daily Lives of the Habsburgs
The Scope of the Book
The Secondary Literature
The Cantata Terminology
Forerunners of the Cantata in Vienna
Part I: The Cantata in Vienna, 1658-1700
2. The Political and Cultural Milieu
Historical Background
Leopold I as Patron and Composer
Habsburg Music Chapels, 1658-1700
Occasions, Places of Performance, and Performers
Librettists
3. The Composers
Composers Who May Have Written Cantatas for Vienna During the Early
Reign of Leopold I
Antonio and Carlo Draghi
Filippo Vismarri
Carlo Cappellini
Giovanni Battista Pederzuoli
Antonio Maria and Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani
German-Speaking Composers
4. Repertoire and Sources
The Repertoire
The Sources
5. Text and Music
Antonio Maria Viviani
Antonio Bertali
Filippo Vismarri
Carlo Cappellini
Giovanni Battista Pederzuoli
Antonio and Carlo Draghi
Part II: The Cantata in Vienna, 1700-1711
6. The Political and Cultural Milieu
Historical Background
Joseph I as Patron and Composer
Cultural Growth
Habsburg Music Chapels, 1700-1711
Genre Designations
Occasions, Places of Performance, and Performers
Librettists and Librettos
7. The Composers
Carlo Agostino Badia
Giovanni Bononcini
Marc'Antonio Ziani
Attilio Ariosti
Antonio Maria Bononcini
Composers Who May Have Written Cantatas for Vienna
8. Repertoire and Sources
New Interest in the Cantata
The Repertoire of Cantatas by Habsburg Composers
Sources
9. Style Overview
The Style Transition
Broad Structural Plans
Selection of Voices
Instrumentation
Dynamics
Recitative and Arioso
Aria Keys
Continuum (Tempo/Meter)
The Use of Devisen
Aria Designs
10. Aspects of Form
The Conventional Da Capo Design
Variants from the Conventional Design
Articulation of Form
11. Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm
Melody
Harmony
Surface Rhythm
Changes in Timbre
12. The Relationship of Text and Music
The Text and Its Influence upon the Musical Design
The Interactions of the Text with Melody and Rhythm
Tone Color and Dynamics
Descriptive Treatment of the Text
Affective Treatment of the Text
13. Conclusion: The Interregnum and Its Aftermath
The End of the War of the Spanish Succession
The Fate of the Cantata Composers and Librettists Who Served Joseph I
The Cantatas by Composers Residing in Vienna During the Interregum
Appendix A: Index of Cantata Text Incipits and Sources
Appendix B: Catalogue Raisonné of Viennese Cantata Sources
Appendix C: Texts of Arias Analyzed in Chapters 10-12
Notes
Bibliography

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Histoire de la musique
• Styles
• Genres
• MUSIC
• Viena
• Multiple signal classification
• Art music
• History of classical music traditions
• Chamber music
• Italy
• House of Habsburg
• My Last Duchess
• Chamber
• Vienna
• Musique savante

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 18 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253010346
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 15 Mo

Extrait

THE ITALIAN CANTATA IN VIENNA
Publications of the Early Music Institute
PAUL ELLIOTT, EDITOR
THE ITALIAN CANTATA IN VIENNA
Entertainment in the Age of Absolutism
Lawrence Bennett
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders 800-842-6796
Fax orders 812-855-7931
2013 by Lawrence Bennett
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-01018-6 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-01034-6 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 18 17 16 15 14 13
For Nancy, whose patience provided the support that made this book a reality
CONTENTS

Preface
List of Bibliographical Abbreviations
List of RISM Sigla

1. Introduction
PART I THE CANTATA IN VIENNA, 1658-1700

2. The Political and Cultural Milieu
3. The Composers
4. Repertoire and Sources
5. Text and Music
PART II THE CANTATA IN VIENNA, 1700-1711

6. The Political and Cultural Milieu
7. The Composers
8. Repertoire and Sources
9. Style Overview

10. Aspects of Form
11. Melody, Harmony, and Rhythm
12. The Relationship of Text and Music
13. Conclusion: The Interregnum and Its Aftermath
Appendix A. Index of Cantata Text Incipits and Sources
Appendix B. Catalogue Raisonn of Viennese Cantata Sources
Appendix C. Texts of Arias Analyzed in Chapters 10-12
Notes
Editions and Bibliography
Index
PREFACE

This book is the culmination of many years of work by a lover of vocal chamber music. That love began in 1969, when I cofounded The Western Wind vocal ensemble, a sextet dedicated to a cappella music of all periods. About the time that The Western Wind gave its first concert, I began my search for a Ph.D. dissertation topic in music history at New York University. Strongly attracted to the great madrigals of Claudio Monteverdi, Giaches de Wert, and Luca Marenzio, I at first considered a topic focused on an aspect of the Italian madrigal. Noticing, however, that many outstanding scholars were already working in this field, I wondered if perhaps there was a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century topic in accompanied vocal chamber music that merited exploration. Scholars such as Owen Jander, Gloria Rose, and Eleanor Caluori were producing groundbreaking studies and thematic catalogs for important secular cantata composers such as Alessandro Stradella, Giacomo Carissimi, and Luigi Rossi, but the sheer vastness of the extant cantata repertoire made it evident that much work still needed to be done. My search for a topic eventually led me to the music of the Bononcini brothers, Giovanni and Antonio Maria, and more specifically to their secular cantatas.
In the spring of 1969 I learned that I had received a Fulbright Fellowship to study the Bononcini cantatas housed in the great libraries of Vienna. That summer I traveled to Massachusetts, where I received valuable advice from Jander, a professor at Wellesley College, and met Lowell Lindgren while working in the Loeb Music Library at Harvard University. To my surprise, Lindgren informed me that he too was starting out on a dissertation about the music of the Bononcinis. After the initial shock, we decided to split the topic: Lindgren would concentrate on the operas, and I would work on the cantatas. Lindgren has gone on to write a dissertation and to publish many meticulously prepared articles.
For my study of the Bononcini cantatas, I had chosen Vienna because of its central location, naively hoping that I would be able to travel to libraries and archives all over Europe. Because of travel restrictions and limited funds, I concluded within a few weeks after arriving in Vienna that it would be impossible to realize my dream of collecting all the Bononcini cantatas in a single year. Regular visits to the music collections of the sterreichische Nationalbibliothek and the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde made me aware that there was more than enough to do in Vienna. I learned that the Bononcini brothers were only two of many Italian composers who spent all or large portions of their careers in the service of the imperial family. I therefore refocused my topic to concentrate on the cantatas written for Vienna by composers employed by the Habsburgs during the baroque era. I rewrote my dissertation proposal and was fortunate to receive a one-year renewal of my Fulbright Fellowship.
I soon learned that the music-loving Habsburg emperors took great pains to preserve the works composed in their honor and for their entertainment. Thus the music libraries of the emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI contain beautiful copies of operas, oratorios, cantatas, and other works prepared for them by professional scribes on high-quality paper. The sturdy bindings of parchment or leather often display elaborate imprints decorated with gold that identify the specific emperors who had ordered the archival copies. The majority of the cantatas are housed in the music collection of the sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, but I discovered that the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde also preserves many cantatas, including autograph copies by Habsburg composers such as Marc Antonio Ziani and Antonio Caldara. Over time I also located manuscript copies of cantatas composed for Vienna in libraries such as the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin and the Max-Reger-Institut in Meiningen.
Manuscripts, yes, but what of printed Italian cantata collections? After all, many volumes of cantatas were published in Italy during the baroque era. Of the dozens of composers employed by the Habsburgs between 1658 and 1740, only one-Carlo Agostino Badia-appears to have received permission to publish a volume of secular cantatas. The Habsburg emperors asserted strict ownership of works composed in their honor and in general did not permit much of the music to circulate beyond the imperial court.
The Viennese libraries contain manuscripts with countless cantatas by composers who never received Habsburg appointments. No doubt some of these cantatas were performed in Vienna. My task eventually became one of isolating the cantatas specifically written for Vienna by composers employed there. The work was somewhat mitigated by the fact that composers such as Antonio Draghi, Filippo Vismarri, Carlo Cappellini, and Badia spent most of their careers in the service of the imperial family. The Habsburgs pride in preserving archival copies of cantatas by composers with imperial appointments also enabled me to identify many works pertinent to my topic. Giovanni Bononcini posed a special problem. Giovanni composed large numbers of cantatas before and after his service in Vienna. Would it be possible to separate the cantatas written for Vienna from the rest? Many Bononcini cantatas exist in multiple copies spread throughout Europe and the United States. For some time I attempted to create a thematic catalog with concordances of the Bononcini cantatas. This work was eventually expanded and completed by Lindgren; the text incipits with sigla for libraries containing Bononcini cantatas are given by Lindgren in the articles for Giovanni and Antonio Bononcini published in the 2001 edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Five cantatas by Giovanni are found in unique archival copies from the period of his first imperial service (1698-1712), and I therefore concluded that they were composed for Vienna.
I returned to New York in the summer of 1971. My dissertation advisors at New York University, David Burrows and Jan LaRue, gave helpful suggestions as the project moved forward. At first I intended to include the cantatas composed for Vienna for the entire baroque era. Observing that such a project could take a lifetime to complete, LaRue wisely recommended that I limit the dissertation to the cantatas composed from roughly 1700 to 1711, the final years of the emperorship of Leopold I and the brief reign of Joseph I. Confining the dissertation to this period made perfect sense because it coincided with the influx of new composers who brought the late baroque style to Vienna.
Following an American Musicological Society conference in the 1990s, Robert Kendrick strongly encouraged me to consider a book about the cantatas composed for Vienna. The Italian Cantata in Vienna: Entertainment in the Age of Absolutism is the result of my current research.
A book of this scope would not be possible without the support of many colleagues. I am especially grateful to Steven Saunders and Andrew Weaver for their generous advice in helping me to shape the introductory chapter; to Lowell Lindgren for sharing innumerable valuable suggestions and details; and to the Austrian scholars Martin Eybl, Herbert Seifert, and Theophil Antonicek for their insights. I also wish to acknowledge the music library staff at the sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, especially G nter Brosche and Thomas Leibnitz, the former and current directors; Otto Biba and the library staff at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde; Herta M ller and Maren Goltz, the former and current music librarians at the Max-Reger-Institut in Meiningen; and the staff of the William and Gayle Cook Music Library at Indiana University, especially David Lasocki and Carla Williams, the former and current