Virtuoso Venetian Winds

Home , Alessandro Marcello, Baldassare Galuppi, Tomaso Albinoni

Since the end of the Renaissance, wind instruments have occupied a central position in the musical life of Venice. During the 16th century, especially, the piffari —groups of brass, winds, and percussion sometimes accompanied by viols and violins—were hired to enliven civil and religious feasts, notably at St Mark’s Basilica (see Canaletto’s admirable Interior of San Marco at the MMFA exhibition). Virtuosos were mostly heard performing on instruments from the cornett and sackbut families, and apart from the important keyboard school, these were the instrumentalists who, rivaling the violinists, exerted the greatest influence on the developing musical languages of the Gabrielis and of Monteverdi.

It comes then as no surprise that after the violin, the first instruments the craftsmen of the concerto in Venice sought to indulge were those winds which in the 17th and 18th centuries slowly came to the forefront: the double reeds (oboe and bassoon, descendants of the shawm—called piffari ) and the various flutes (successors of the flageolets and fifes—the fiffari ).

It is quite appropriate to open the festivities with the best-known of Venetian composers, Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). The opening sinfonia to the serenata La Senna festeggianta (The River Seine Rejoicing) is in keeping with the rest of the concert, since it is in the form of a concerto for orchestra, written for strings, oboes, and recorders. The outer movements are borrowed from a string concerto (RV 117), while Vivaldi borrowed from his opera Giustino (1724) for the middle movement. Note that the original concerto’s initial Allegro is marked « alla francese », on account of the bursts of sweeping notes and the dotted rhythms evocative of the French style. This makes perfect sense, since the serenata (a grand cantata of sorts) it introduces was created in Venice for the feast of St Louis in 1726 concurrent with the reprise of diplomatic relations between the Serenissima and France, which saw Cardinal Ottoboni hosted in great pomp by the new French ambassador, Jacques-Vincent Languet. Incidentally, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg houses a magnificent veduta by Canaletto depicting Languet’s reception at the Doge’s Palace.

Venice Tempest: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Bourgie Concert Hall 514.355.1825 / arionbaroque.com

Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751) and Alessandro Marcello (1669 or 1673-1747), brother to the more prolific Benedetto, were both dilettante , those men of independent means who could practice their art for pleasure more than out of necessity. The son of a rich Venetian paper merchant, Albinoni fancied himself a Dilettante Veneto until the death of his father in 1709 freed him from the family business. He subsequently devoted himself fully to music, composing some 80 operas and a respectable amount of instrumental music, especially concertos. Influenced more by opera than by church music, the solo concerto of the time combined expression with virtuosity, and in Albinoni’s able hands, the form developed even further. He was the first to make regular use of the three-movement layout, and the first in Italy, in his Opus 7 of 1715, to publish oboe concertos. His Opus 9 of 1722, which shows him at his best as evidenced by the balance and the melodic elegance of the Concerto No. 2 in D minor , includes concertos for one and two oboes, as well as violin concertos.

As for Alessandro Marcello, he is a perfect example of the Nobile Dilettante . The son of a Venetian senator, he delved not only into music, but also singing, painting, and poetry, as well as dabbling in philosophy and mathematics. The Concerto No. 6 in G major from his set titled La Cetra (The Lyre) displays much variety in its instrumental writing, such as the oboes doubling or departing from the two solo violin lines in the Allegro, the transverse flutes joining the muted violins in the Larghetto, and the polyphonic writing of the first solo violin in the Vivace.

Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), whose career was centered in Venice, with notable stays in London and Russia, left his mark mostly as one of the creators of opera buffa . His concertante works, like the Concerto for two flutes in E minor , exhibit the same melodic gracefulness and stylistic clarity as his operas.

The Florentine violinist and composer Francesco Maria Veracini (1690-1768) boasted an important international career, despite or perhaps partly thanks to his capricious character. The lovely Ouverture (or Suite) heard today is one of six dedicated to Prince Frederick Augustus of Saxony upon his visit to Venice in 1716. Another stylistic homage paid to France, this contagiously lively suite lets the oboes shine in the Gavotte and Minuet.

The composer Giovanni Benedetto Platti (1697-1763) deploys a highly Vivaldian idiom in his Oboe Concerto in G minor , although echoes of Corelli can be heard in the languorous Largo. The pyrotechnics of the concerto thankfully serve to enhance Platti’s well-wrought and natural musicality. Born in Padua, Platti probably studied music in Venice, where he became a virtuoso oboist.

It seems befitting that Vivaldi should have the honor to close the concert, with his exhilarating Concerto in C major , RV 557, “ con molti strumenti ”.

Venice Tempest: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Bourgie Concert Hall 514.355.1825 / arionbaroque.com