1700-1749 Cello & Keyboard

Question 0

Name 8 cello & keyboard works ca.1700-1749.

Answer 0

1. Giuseppe Valentini: Sonata No.10 in E from 12 Allettamenti di camera for violin (arr. for cello by Piatti) and continuo, Op.8 (1714)
2. Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata No.2 in D from 3 Sonatas for viola da gamba (or cello) and harpsichord, BWV1027-9 (ca.1717-23)
3. Georg Phillip Telemann: Sonata in D for cello and basso continuo (1728-9)
4. Antonio Vivaldi: Cello Sonata No.5 in e, RV40 (ca.1739)
5. Pietro Locatelli: Sonata da camera for violin (arr. for cello by Piatti ) and continuo in D (1737)
6. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Sonatas in C and D for viola da gamba and keyboard (ca.1745-6)
7. Francesco Geminiani: 6 Sonatas for cello and basso continuo, Op.5 (1746)
8. Martin Berteau: Cello Sonata in G from 6 Cello Sonatas, Op.1, No.3 (1748)

Question 1

How many cello sonatas did Vivaldi write?

Answer 1

Vivaldi wrote 9 cello sonatas.

Question 2

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Valentini

Answer 2

• Composer: Giuseppe Valentini
• Title: Sonata No.10 in E from 12 Allettamenti di camera for violin (arr. for cello by Piatti) and continuo, Op.8
• Date: 1714
• 5 movements with a sonata da camera structure: prelude - fast - dance movement (gavotte) - slow - fast.
• Sonata da camera (Italian ‘chamber sonata’) is used to describe a group of instrumental pieces set into three or four different movements, beginning with a prelude, or small sonata, acting as an introduction for the following movements.
• Virtuosic fast arpeggiated spiccato passages with many string crossings.
• A short gavotte-like Allegro is full of trills.
• Virtuosic ricochet bowings.
  [??- The structure of the sonata is unusual in character: it is a kind of church sonata in which, half way through, there is a passage that resembles a chamber sonata, with the evident characteristics, at least in part, of a theme with variations.??]

Question 3

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Vivaldi

Answer 3

• Composer: Antonio Vivaldi
• Title: Cello Sonata No.5 in e, RV40
• Date: ca.1739
• He wrote these sonatas for well-trained but non-virtuoso musicians, such as the young girls of the orphanage where he was irregularly employed, the Conservatorio dell’Ospedale della Pietà.
• Published as part of a set of six cello sonatas. He wrote a total of 90 sonatas; 9 of them are cello sonatas.
• Out of Vivaldi’s many works which feature the cello, this piece is widely known to modern cellists in part because it has been included in recent years as a student piece in the immensely popular Suzuki string method books.
• classic binary form, Since repeats are included for each main section, this gives the performer an opportunity to add embellishments.
• After his death, Vivaldi’s music sank into oblivion, but knew a revaluation in the 20th century, chiefly thanks to the Bach renaissance, which in a sense, we are witnessing still. For in Germany, Vivaldi had a fervent admirer in the person of J.S. Bach, who made numerous transcriptions of Vivaldi’s concertos.
• affinity for the lyrical character of the cello, often audible in the slow movements
• Vivaldi frequently uses chromaticism, augmented intervals, syncopal effects, and Lombardic rhythms (a motive that he was the first to use, according to Quantz).

Question 4

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Johann Sebastian Bach

Answer 4

• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
• Title: Sonata No.2 in D from 3 Sonatas for viola da gamba (or cello) and harpsichord, BWV1027-9
• Date: ca.1717-23
• These sonatas belong to a long tradition of Germanic chamber music in which the instrument enjoyed great favour. Many sonatas for three or four instruments including a viola da gamba were written from the second half of the 17th century onwards: Bach must have known the works of Buxtehude and Telemann who readily included the viol in their repertoire.
• Bach, who was regarded as one of the most skillful harpsichordists of his time, left many compositions for that instrument (e.g. Goldberg Variations, Well-Tempered Clavier, preludes, toccatas, concertos, fantasias, and fugues). He explored every musical genre that was performed at that time on the instrument.
• Bach’s three sonatas are also among the models of a genre that was to have a rich future - that of the solo instrument and obbligato harpsichord, which gives the keyboard instrument a true solo role. The harpsichord part is fully written-out - unlike a basso continuo, for which only the bass line is given, with figures to indicate harmony.
• The sonatas have the usual texture of Bach’s instrumental sonatas, with two upper parts supported by a bass part.
• The Viola da Gamba Sonatas have been variously dated, either to about 1720, to Bach’s Cöthen period, when the Court Capelle included the bass viol-player Christian Ferdinand Abel, or to the later period in Leipzig, when Bach was occupied with the Collegium musicum, in the repertoire of which the sonatas may have been included. Regardless, these sonatas date from a period very near to the famous 6 Cello Suites.
• The first two are in four movements, adopting the pattern of a church sonata with alternating fast and slow movements, but the third sonata only has three movements (fast-slow-fast).
• The B minor Andante is in the rhythm of a siciliano. A notable moment happens when the harpsichord leaves it concertante role momentarily, when a figured bass line replaces the two-part writing in order to provide better support for the expressive theme stated by the viol in a part. The key of B minor is one which Bach reserved for the expression of sadness, suffering, and affliction. This intense yet restrained lament, which appears to have almost been transcribed from a Passion aria, leads straight into the frantic Allegro.

Question 5

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach

Answer 5

• Composer: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
• Title: Sonatas in C and D for viola da gamba and keyboard
• Date: ca.1745-6
• It is particularly in the slow movements that the rhetorical element of Bach’s Empfindsamer stil with its pent emotion and sensibility is evident, reminding us of his own teaching on the subject. in hi Versuch, insisting that the aim of music was to touch the heart of the hearer and thus should be ‘from the soul’.

Question 7

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Locatelli

Answer 7

• Composer: Pietro Locatelli
• Title: Sonata da camera in D for violin and continuo (arr. for cello by Piatti)
• Date: 1737
• Sonata da camera (Italian ‘chamber sonata’) is used to describe a group of instrumental pieces set into three or four different movements, beginning with a prelude, or small sonata, acting as an introduction for the following movements.
• This sonata contains 3 movements: fast-slow-fast
• At an early age, became a pupil of Corelli’s
• A distinction must be made between Locatelli’s virtuoso works written for his own use and consisting mainly of études and caprices of little musical merit, and the sonatas and concerti. In the latter, we recognize a great and original master, a worthy disciple of his teacher Corelli.
• revised by Piatti, The piece does not lack in virtuosity, and is graced with pleasantly staccato notes.

Question 8

Piece: Cello and keyboard work by Martin Berteau

Answer 8

• Composer: Martin Berteau
• Title: Cello Sonata in G from 6 Cello Sonatas, Op.1, No.3
• Date: 1748
• Berteau is known as the founder of the French school of cello playing. Among his pupils were Cupis and the elder Duport.
• Formerly attributed to Giovanni Battista Sammartini, the Cello Sonata in G major was published as the third sonata in a group of six sonatas.
• It is in a three movement form, fast-slow-fast.
• Each movement resembles a character piece in which short stories are told in a small amount of space. The music remains easy to grasp, but at the same time fascinates with its rhythmic energy and the melodic inventiveness.
• The melody in this piece moves into the background as instrumental technique takes the fore, with a clearly virtuosic style, very suited to a string instrument.
• Each of the three movements begins with an imposing ascending fourth, emphasizing the dominant tonic relationship of the piece’s main key, G major.
• In the central movement, marked Grave, virtuosity is replaced by lyrical cantabile melodies which often emphasize large intervals.

Question 9

Piece: cello and keyboard work by Telemann.

Answer 9

Georg Phillip Telemann: Sonata in D for cello and basso continuo (1728-9)

• During these years Telemann was at the height of his career, and his synthesis of German, French, and Italian musical styles with loans from Eastern European folk music inspired students and colleagues across the continent. For the composer, playing around with various stylistic ideals became a never-ending source of inspiration and experimentation. The Cello Sonata in D major, which in true cliffhanger fashion was published in three consecutive issues of Der ge treue Musikmeister, is an excellent example of this mixed style or – in Telemann’s own words – ‘gemischter Goût’.
• In the 1720s, the cello as a solo instrument was a relative novelty in northern Germany, and the cello and the viola da gamba coexisted in both orchestral and chamber music ensembles. Gamba virtuosos, such as father and son Abel (both with the initials C. F.), would often be equally renowned as exponents of the cello, and as if to mark the rise of the cello and the decline and fall of the gamba, solo works for both instruments appeared side by side – composed for instance by our trinity. The six suites for solo cello by J. S. Bach (c. 1720) and C. P. E. Bach’s three dazzling concertos for the same instrument (1750-53) can be said to mark the beginning and the end of this stage, and when Telemann published his D major Sonata in 1728, it was probably usually performed on the viola da gamba.
• The sonata has the overall 4-movement sonata da chiesa (Italian for church sonata) slow-fast-slow-fast scheme, with an opening Lento providing the cello with an opportunity to demonstrate its potential in terms of register and timbre. An Allegro follows – a brisk, Italianate gigue, succeeded by an expressive Largo, which the cosmopolitan Telemann for some reason has chosen to notate in a typically French manner. The closing movement is a cheerful Allegro with an unusual 4/8 time signature. As so often in Telemann we find here an imitation of folk music. The piece anticipates the galant Italian cello sonata as it would emerge in the hands of for instance Vivaldi and Geminiani.

Question 10

Piece: cello and keyboard work by Geminiani.

Answer 10

Francesco Geminiani: 6 Sonatas for cello and basso continuo, Op.5 (1746)

• Each sonata has 3 movements with a slow-fast-slow movement scheme.
• His early violin studies led him to the most advanced music centers in Italy at the time (Milan, Rome, Naples), where he studied violin under maestros Carlo Ambrogio Lonati and Arcangelo Corelli and composition under Alessandro Scarlatti. He had a rather intense musical style, which made it difficult for him to play in groups (the expressive way he played the violin and his fitful and imaginative way of conducting orchestras earned him the nick name of ‘furibondo’ [the Madman] according to Giuseppe Tartini), and he decided to go to London, then a receptive and fertile ground where Italian musicians were much appreciated. Training under Corelli (highly esteemed in England) paid off by giving him the charisma to open the doors of English nobility which received him excitedly.
• Along with Pietro Locatelli, Francesco Maria Veracini and Giuseppe Tartini, he shared noble rank in the Italian school for violin, renown throughout Europe for its whimsical, virtuoso style and its original and ingenuous technical innovations, portal to Romantic music.
• If history presents an image of Geminiani as a first rate virtuoso performer, his skill as composer is not judged quite as unanimously. Critical views of him ranged greatly and did not lack personal linguistic-musical interpretations: “a grand master of harmony, but his concerto compositions are elaborate, difficult and strange” (Charles Burney), “a great innovator and imitator” (David Dodge Boyden), “an extremely rigorous and precise composer” (Ernst Ludwig Gerber), “compared to Corelli, his style is alive and modern” (Hugo Riemann, Alfred Einstein).
• The 6 Sonatas for Cello and basso continuo op. 5 appeared in print in The Hague in 1746 and were revised shortly afterward becoming Sonates pour le Violon avec un Violoncelle ou Clavecin in the Paris edition of the same year. In that edition, the original composition is enriched with daring virtuosity. As far as the role for cello is concerned, the sonatas, under the insignia of courageous virtuosity, are articulated in various movements and constitute an astonishingly inventive kaleidoscope, which changes colours thanks to the use of the most unpredictable tactics, such as: the horizontal elegance of fluent and effective musical language, the role of the basso continuo which is not confined to a mere function of support but is part of an engaging imitative style, the plasticity of the melody as it unravels in all its range, the originality of its harmony, the unending richness in the rhythm of the embellishments, the focus points with coronas for free and fanciful improvisation, the not affected, essential ornamentation incorporated in the dialogue, the precision of the phrasing distinguished by appropriate bow strikes, the effective polyphonic scripture, the spontaneity of rapturously excited invention that goes beyond common patterns, the essentiality of the motifs, and the liberty in the melodic symmetries. The act of creation looks for a point of reference in the heritage of the past, a major feature of which was counterpoint and the budding of new tempos. The bulwark, creation of an exceptional personality, which connected the creative instinct with the temperament of a performer, unfortunately did not have a positive influence on the new generations, who were drawn to the chimeras of melody and infatuated by the enticement of naive harmonies, come to the attention of the composing nobility. The resulting confusion led to the rise of galante music, prey of the pursuit of hedonistic audio pleasure and a deceitful illusion of being new. In this light, Geminiani’s creativity takes on an even more intense aura of coherency, authenticity and classicism.

Question 11

Which composers of the selected pieces wrote their specific work in the form of a sonata da chiesa?

Answer 11

• Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata No.2 in D from 3 Sonatas for viola da gamba (or cello) and harpsichord, BWV1027-9 (ca.1717-23) (however Bach’s 3rd gamba sonata is in 3 movements - da camera)
• Georg Phillip Telemann: Sonata in D for cello and basso continuo (1728-9)
• Antonio Vivaldi: Cello Sonata No.5 in e, RV40 (ca.1739)
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Sonatas in C and D for viola da gamba and keyboard (ca.1745-6)

Question 12

Which composers of the selected pieces wrote their specific work in the form of a sonata da camera?

Answer 12

• Giuseppe Valentini: Sonata No.10 in E from 12 Allettamenti di camera for violin (arr. for cello by Piatti) and continuo, Op.8 (1714)
• Pietro Locatelli: Sonata da camera for violin (arr. for cello by Piatti ) and continuo in D (1737)
• Francesco Geminiani: 6 Sonatas for cello and basso continuo, Op.5 (1746)
• Martin Berteau: Cello Sonata in G from 6 Cello Sonatas, Op.1, No.3 (1748)