Boccherini’s Body Boccherini’s Body An Essay in Carnal Musicology Elisabeth Le Guin UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2006 by Elisabeth Le Guin Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Le Guin, Elisabeth, 1957– Boccherini’s body : an essay in carnal musicology / Elisabeth Le Guin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-520-24017-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Boccherini, Luigi, 1743–1805—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Music—Interpretation (Phrasing, dynamics, etc.) I. Title. ml410.b66l4 2006 780'.92—dc22 2005023224 Manufactured in the United States of America 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 10987654321 This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 50% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper).8 But what do my cold and exaggerated expressions mean, my lines without character and without life, these lines that I have just traced, one on top of the other? Nothing, nothing at all; one must see the thing. Mais que signifient mes expressions exagérées et froides, mes lignes sans caractères et sans vie, ces lignes que je viens de tracer les unes au-dessus des autres? Rien, mais rien du tout; il faut voir la chose. denis diderot, “Vernet,” Salon of 1767 carnal Latin carnalis, fleshly; med. Latin, blood-relationship 1. Of or pertaining to the flesh; fleshly, bodily, corporeal 2. Related by blood 3. a. Pertaining to the body as the seat of passions or appetites; fleshly, sensual b. Sexual 4. Not spiritual, in a negative sense: material, temporal, secular 5. Not spiritual, in a privative sense: unregenerate 6. Carnivorous, bloody, murderous Oxford English Dictionary contents list of figures xi list of music examples xiii cd playlist xv acknowledgments xxi Introduction 1 The origins of this project—Boccherini’s generally acknowledged mer- its—some less generally acknowledged qualities—“carnal musicology” as based in the performer’s viewpoint—brief digests of each chapter to come—excursus: historicizing the terms of embodiment—kinesthesia— Condillac—fact and fiction 1. “Cello-and-Bow Thinking”: The First Movement of Boccherini’s Cello Sonata in Eb Major, Fuori Catalogo 14 Reciprocity of relationship between performer and dead composer— framing the cellist-body—a carnal reading of the first half of the move- ment in question— thumb-position—pleasure in repetition—cellistic bel canto—the predominance of reflective and pathetic affects— communicability and reciprocality—Rousseau on the role of the performer—subjectivity as a necessity—the second half of the move- ment—relationships between musical form and carnal experience—Boc- cherini’s “celestial” topos—carnality and compositional process—the importance of the visual—in conclusion: the necessary ambivalence of my descriptions and analyses 2. “As My Works Show Me to Be”: Biographical 38 Boccherini’s self-representation in his letters—the lack of solid first- hand biographical evidence—the divergence of his performer and com- poser identities—period anxieties over those identities—early years in Lucca—familial emphasis on dance—travels to Vienna, 1757–63— possibilities of further touring—possible Viennese influences on Boc- cherini—Paris, 1768: the musical and cultural climate—Parisian virtuoso cellists—circumstantial evidence of meetings between Boc- cherini and Jean-Pierre Duport—Boccherini’s especial success with Parisian publishers—Spain, 1769—Boccherini’s first court post, 1770—the Spanish musical and cultural climate—Boccherini’s adept- ness at finding a place within it 3. Gestures and Tableaux 65 The importance of visuality to period reception—its subsequent de- cline—the effect of this decline on Boccherini’s posthumous reputa- tion—Spohr: “This does not deserve to be called music!”—a passage that might have provoked such a reaction—Boccherinian stasis and repetitiousness—Boccherinian sensibilité—the paintings of Luis Paret—the predominance of soft dynamics—hyper-precision in perfor- mance directions—the lacuna as sensible strategy—Boccherinian abandonment of melody in favor of texture—the influence of acoustics— tableaux in period theater and painting—their relations to sensibi- lité—absorption—suppressed eroticism—tragedy and the tableau— the reform body: Angiolini’s classifications of motion styles—Spanish dance and gesture—seguidillas, boleros, and fandangos—Bocche- rini’s complex relations to Spanish style—“Instrumentalist, what do you want of me?”: problems in the relation of performance to text 4. Virtuosity, Virtuality, Virtue 105 A theatricalized reading of the Cello Sonata in C Major, G. 17— cyclicity in Boccherini’s works—inter-generic recycling of themes and movements—unconscious recycling of subsidiary passages—the influ- ence of tactile experience on this level of composition—etymologies of the word idiom—the sonatas within Boccherini’s oeuvre—virtuosi— philosophical problems posed by virtuosity—virtuosity contra sensi- bilité—the grotesque—actorly virtuosity—the automatic and me- chanical—bodily training toward perfection—the paradox of the actor 5. A Melancholy Anatomy 160 Reports of the 1993 exhumation and autopsy of Boccherini’s body— TB, the “white death”—musical melancholies—Boccherinian melan- choly—Edward Young’s Night Thoughts—a melancholic reading of the String Quartet in C Minor, op. 9, no. 1, G. 171, Allegro—melan- cholic labyrinths—from Galen to Descartes—sympathetic vibration as a cause of or cure for melancholy—various consumptions—life and art: some animadversions—satiric melancholy—the performance di- rection con smorfia—other consumptions—Enlightenment anxieties about nocturnal pollution and consumption—the Marquis de Sade— a melancholic reading of the String Quartet in G Minor, op. 8, no. 4, G. 168, Grave—hypochondria as an aspect of musical hermeneutics 6. “It Is All Cloth of the Same Piece”: The Early String Quartets 207 An overview of Boccherini’s work in this genre—style periodization: Boccherini’s relatively unchanging style—woven music: his penchant for texture over melody—recycling the idea of recycling—the problem of “repetition” in ensemble contexts—sublimated caresses—the ro- coco—address to a sforzando—two analyses of the String Quartet in E Major, op. 15, no. 3, G. 179—peculiarities of the work—the first analysis (relatively conventional)—readerly relationships to analysis— the second analysis (experimental) 7. The Perfect Listener: A Recreation 254 Boccherini and Haydn’s attempt at correspondence—period compar- ison of the two composers—using carnal musicology on composers other than Boccherini—the Perfect Listener: re-creating “listener per- formance practice”—the Perfect Listener attends a performance of Haydn’s G-major keyboard sonata, Hob. XVI:39—cadential remarks appendix: chronological table of string quartets 271 notes 273 bibliography 331 index 345 list of figures 1. Lyra Howell, Left Hand in Thumb-Position 20 2. Italian school, eighteenth century, Portrait of Luigi Boccherini 40 3. Jean-Étienne Liotard, Portrait of Luigi Boccherini 41 4. Eighteenth-century map of Castilla y León 56 5. Francisco de Goya, Baile a orillas del rio Manzanares 63 6. Luis Paret y Alcázar, Ensayo de una comedia 72 7. Jean-Baptiste Greuze, La Mère bien-aimée 84 8. Francisco de Goya, El entierro de la sardina 140 9. Francisco de Goya, “Incómoda elegancia” 142 10. Anon., Night the Third: Narcissa 164 xi list of music examples 1. Cello Sonata in Eb Major, fuori catalogo, i (Allegro), first half of movement 15 2. Cello Sonata in Eb Major, fuori catalogo, i (Allegro), second half of movement 28 3. Transcription of music sketches in Liotard’s Portrait of Luigi Boccherini 42 4a. Cello Concerto in C Major, G. 573, ii (Largo cantabile), bars 13–20 54 4b. Jean-Pierre Duport, Étude in D Major, opening bars 54 5. String Quartet in A Major, op. 8, no. 6, G. 170, i (Allegro brillante), bars 11–17 67 6. String Quartet in F Major, op. 15, no. 2, G. 178, i (Allegretto con grazia), bars 104–12 73 7. String Quartet in A Major, op. 8, no. 6, G. 170, iii (Allegro maestoso), bars 48–57 74 8. String Quartet in C Minor, op. 2, no. 1, G. 159, i (Allegro comodo), opening bars of first-violin part to words from Cambini’s Nouvelle Méthode 88 9. String Quintet in C Minor, op. 18, no. 1, G. 283, iv (Allegro assai), bars 67–75 89 10. String Quintet in C Major, op. 50, no. 5, G. 374, ii (Minuetto a modo di sighidiglia spagnola), bars 1–13 98 xiii xiv list of music examples 11. Cello Sonata in C Major, G.17, i (Moderato) 106 12. Cello Sonata in C Major, G.17, ii (Adagio) 113 13. Cello Sonata in C Major, G. 17, ii (Adagio), bars 5–8 to words from Metastasio’s Didone abbandonata 115 14. Cello Sonata in C Major, G. 17, iii (Rondò) 118 15a. Cello Sonata in G Major, G. 5, i (Allegro militare), bars 50–51 130 15b. Cello Sonata in G Major, G. 5, ii (Largo), opening 130 16. String Quintet in D Major, op. 11, no. 6, “L’uccelliera,” G. 276, ii (Allegro [I pastori e li cacciatori]), bars 37–49, viola, cello 1, cello 2 144 17. Chord formations from Brunetti 151 18. String Quintet in E Major, op. 11, no. 5, G. 275, iii (Minuetto), opening 158 19. String Quartet in C Minor, op. 9, no. 1, G. 171, i (Allegro) 166 20. String Quartet in F Major, op. 8, no. 5, G. 169, iii (Tempo di minuetto), trio 177 21.