The Symphonies of Antonio Brioschi
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The Symphonies of Antonio Brioschi http://www.biu.ac.il/hu/mu/ims/Min-ad/vol_1/brioschi.htm ISSN 1565-0618 Volume 1 (Summe r, 1999) Copyright © 1997 by the Israel Musicological Society. All rights reserved. This document and all portions thereof are protected by Israeli and International Copyright Laws. Material contained herein may be copied and/or distributed for educational and research purposes only. The Symphonies of Antonio Brioschi: Aspects of Sonata Form Sarah Mandel-Yehuda KEYWORDS: Symphony, Sonata form, Antonio Brioschi, Eighteenth-century music, Analysis, Form, Fonds Blancheton. ABSTRACT: The article investigates tonal, thematic, and textural aspects of sonata form in the movement structures of twenty-six symphonies from the 1730s and early-1740s by the Italian composer Antonio Brioschi (active ca. 1725–ca. 1750). It discusses expository events as well as aspects of development and recapitulation of the musical material. In addition, the article provides an account of the major eighteenth-century manuscript source of the works—a French collection known as Fonds Blancheton—and considers some general stylistic characteristics of the music. 1. INTRODUCTION [1.1] The article deals with aspects of sonata form in recently rediscovered symphonies by Antonio Brioschi (active ca. 1725–ca. 1750). An Italian composer still little known, Antonio Brioschi is gradually being recognized with respect to his symphonies written early in the history of this genre in the eighteenth century.{1} In fact, he seems to have been more prolific as a symphonist in the period prior to 1740 than any other composer, including perhaps his senior and better-known Milanese counterpart Giovanni Battista Sammartini (1700/1–1775).{2} Antonio Brioschi worked in or near Milan and yet his symphonies were disseminated widely outside of Italy in the eighteenth century. This is evident by the multiple copies surviving in manuscripts and prints preserved in some thirty libraries in Europe and the United States, as well as by listings in a number of eighteenth-century catalogs; the largest sources exist in Paris, Prague, Stockholm, and Darmstadt. To cite just one example: different eighteenth-century manuscript copies of parts for a Brioschi symphony in B-flat major are found in Ancona, Paris (Fonds Blancheton Op. II/54, see the discussion later on), Skara, Stockholm (three different copies), and Washington D. C.; two different eighteenth-century scores are preserved in Lund and Stockholm; and the work is listed in the Breitkopf Catalog of 1762.{3} 2. SOURCES, CHRONOLOGY, AND GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS [2.1] The present analysis is based on an examination of twenty-six symphonies by Antonio Brioschi, twenty-five of which are included in an eighteenth-century manuscript collection, Fonds Blancheton, now housed in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris.{4} A large and important source, the collection contains parts for three hundred instrumental works by over a hundred composers, arranged in six opuses of Sinfonie (Op. IV is lost) and one opus of Concerti. The Brioschi symphonies are: Op. I/2, 11, 12, 32, 33, 36, 38, 39, 48, 49; Op. II/54, 55, 59, 61, 64, 65, 67, 72, 73, 80, 81; Op. III/148; Op. V/206, 226; and Op. VI/295. Three of these works are erroneously ascribed to other composers in the Fonds Blancheton: to Antonio St. Martini (Op. III/148), Kelleri (Op. V/226), and Blanchini (Op. VI/295). Although the Fonds Blancheton attributes twenty-eight works to Brioschi, four seem doubtful (Op. I/42, Op. V/203, 205, 212), one is probably spurious, written by Ferdinando Galimberti (Op. III/101), and Op. I/44 is apparently a chamber trio and not a symphony.{5} [2.2] The symphonies were copied between ca. 1740–ca. 1744 by Charles Estien for Pierre Philibert de Blancheton (1697–1756), a music patron and member of the Parliament of Metz from 1724.{6} Works from the first two opuses were most likely copied by 1741;{7} and, as cited above, twenty-one of the twenty-five symphonies of Antonio Brioschi in the collection belong to these first two opuses. We have no further knowledge about the composition dates of Brioschi’s Fonds Blancheton symphonies except for the information about a performance of the G-major symphony Op. I/32 in Casale Monferrato on 10 October 1733,{8} and the existence of an Italian manuscript copy dated 1734 of the D-major symphony Op. II/67.{9} 1 von 8 10.11.2008 12:50 The Symphonies of Antonio Brioschi http://www.biu.ac.il/hu/mu/ims/Min-ad/vol_1/brioschi.htm [2.3] The group of symphonies in the Fonds Blancheton constitutes half of Antonio Brioschi’s output in the genre. They are listed in Jan LaRue’s A Catalogue of 18th-Century Symphonies (except for Op. I/2).{10} Seven have recently been published in modern editions.{11} An additional symphony by Brioschi, in E-flat major, which is dated 1734 in an Italian manuscript copy located in Casale Monferrato, is included in the present discussion—although not found in the Fonds Blancheton —because, like the two dated symphonies mentioned earlier, it is one of the rare dated symphonies from the 1730s.{12} [2.4] As is common in early symphonies, these twenty-six symphonies of Antonio Brioschi are basically scored for strings a 4 (two violins, viola, bass; eighteen symphonies) or a 3 (two violins, bass; eight symphonies). The Fonds Blancheton manuscripts also point to the practice of occasionally playing flutes colla parte, with the violins doubled; to the participation of a cembalo; and, in the trio symphonies, to the addition of violas that double the bass an octave higher. The works are three- movement cycles in the order fast–slow–fast. Connected second and third movements occur in just four symphonies (Op. I/48, 49, Op. II/54, 81); however, the movements are not connected in some of the concordant sources for Op. II/54 and 81. The keys of the symphonies are all major, and we find a variety of them: B-flat (eight symphonies), D (six), E-flat (five), G (four), A, C, and F (one symphony in each key). While the outer movements maintain the same key, most of the middle movements migrate to either the relative or parallel minor keys, and few are written in the subdominant or dominant keys. 3. ASPECTS OF SONATA FORM 3.1. General [3.1.1] All fifty-two outer, fast movements are two-part structures. Each part is repeated and the movements can therefore be described as “extended two-reprise” forms.{13} Part I of every movement corresponds to a sonata-form exposition: it introduces the thematic material and articulates the harmonic movement from the tonic to the dominant key. Taking into account this tonal plan, I–V, Charles Rosen’s description of a sonata-form exposition as a “large-scale dissonance” that “takes on the character of a polarization or opposition” may well be applied to these expositions.{14} An authentic cadence in the secondary key ends Part I of all these movements. [3.1.2] Part II of all the opening movements and eighteen of the twenty-six finales contains a development section followed by a recapitulation section. The recapitulation opens with a double return of the tonic key and the expository primary thematic. What takes place later in the recapitulation section does not fully exemplify Edward Cone’s “sonata principle,” which “requires that important statements made in a key other than the tonic must either be re-stated in the tonic, or brought into a closer relation with the tonic, before the movement ends.”{15} In Brioschi, the musical material coming after the restatement of the primary theme or themes is often reformulated; yet reformulated or not, the material adheres to the tonic key (more about this later on). [3.1.3] Thus, these movements feature a two-part harmonic plan—Parts I and II—combined with a three-part thematic plan—exposition, development, and recapitulation sections. This same layout is the basic construction of the sonata-form stereotype as perceived today. Recent viewpoints of sonata form generally consider jointly the harmonic aspect of the form (given more emphasis in eighteenth-century theoretical writings about form) and the thematic aspect (emphasized in nineteenth-century theories of sonata form).{16} Sometimes classified as “first-movement sonata form” or “sonata-allegro,” the form of these movements is labeled here “full sonata form.” There are six slow movements with similar forms as well (see Table 1);{17} the slow-movement expositions in minor keys modulate to the mediant key. Table 1: Brioschi Fonds Blancheton movements in sonata form [3.1.4] Other types of sonata form in the Brioschi symphonic movements are reported in Table 1. Among the slow movements there are six with a two-part organization that, unlike the movements described earlier, has no repeats. Furthermore, while Part I corresponds to a full sonata-form exposition, Part II does not: it consists rather of a recapitulation section (with no development section); hence the adoption of Jan LaRue’s term here, “exposition-recap” (another familiar term is “slow- movement” sonata form).{18} This type of sonata form appears in several first movements of Italian overtures from the 1730s, as for example Leonardo Leo’s overture to Amor vuol sofferenza (1739), and of course in many slow symphonic movements in the later part of the century. [3.1.5] The form of two finales called here “binary sonata” features a recapitulation that starts with the expository secondary theme. Though not typical of Brioschi, as we have seen, this form is characteristic of the Mannheim symphonic style. Finally, among all the Brioschi movements, one middle movement in full sonata form has no repeats.