Baldassare GALUPPI Keyboard Sonatas • 2 Matteo Napoli, Piano

572490bk Galuppi2:570034bk Hasse 24/7/11 11:55 AM Page 4 Matteo Napoli Matteo Napoli was born in Salerno and is an honours graduate of the Giordano Conservatoire (Foggia). Early in his Baldassare career he captured worldwide attention winning many competitions, including First Prize in the International Liszt Competition at Lucca (Italy) in 1986. He has performed in Europe, as well as in New York, Mexico City, São Paolo, Japan, Australia, China and Malaysia. As a soloist, he has appeared with a number of orchestras, including the GALUPPI Orchestra da Camera di Firenze, Brasov Philharmonic, Ofunam Philharmonic Orchestra, Tirana Opera House, Cyprus Chamber Orchestra, NSO of Malaysia, and, in New Zealand, the Manukau Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. In Auckland (2003) he gave the first modern performance of the Piano Concerto No. 6 by Keyboard Sonatas • 2 Ferdinand Ries, with Uwe Grodd as conductor, followed by the European première in Romania and a further performance with the NSO of Malaysia (2004). He is now based in Auckland, New Zealand. www.matteonapoli.com Matteo Napoli, Piano C M Y K 8.572490 4 572490bk Galuppi2:570034bk Hasse 24/7/11 11:55 AM Page 2 Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785) listing of 1909, with Nos. 29 to 32 following the listing of Scarlatti and the sonata ends with an Allegro assai in triple Keyboard Sonatas • 2 Charles van den Borren of 1923. Illy records Nos. 36 to time with characteristic opening figuration. 41, the sonatas of the Passatempo al cembalo, as having The Sonata in C major, Illy 27, opens with an Andante, Known as Il Buranello, from Burano, his place of birth, Dublin and of the second, Galuppi’s Penelope, he quotes been mentioned by Ezra Pound’s mistress, the American its melody presented in the right hand against an Alberti Baldassare Galuppi played a leading part in the develop- a certain nobleman: Il faut que je dise avec Harlequin, violinist Olga Rudge, in an Accademia Chigiana pub- accompaniment. This leads to an Allegro in 3/8 with the ment of opera buffa, although his name may now be more nôtre Penelôpe n’est qu’une Sallôpe. Nevertheless lication of 1948. In Walsh’s edition the six sonatas of vigour of Scarlatti. The sonata ends with an Allegro assai, familiar to readers of Robert Browning’s poem A Toccata Galuppi established a lasting reputation in England, where Op. 2 correspond with Nos. 1 to 6 of Hedda Illy’s listing, continuing in the same mood. The Sonata in E flat major, of Galuppi’s, an elegy for the vanished heyday of Venice: Walsh later published two sets of his keyboard sonatas, in and the six of Op. 1 to Nos. 30, 11, 43, 45, 50 and 19. The Illy 24, starts with a movement marked Cantabile, a gentle Here you come with your old music, and here’s all the 1756 and 1759. Dr Burney reflects something of this in his sonatas as we have them are, however, subject to Italianate aria, over a left-hand accompaniment. There good it brings: / What they lived once thus at Venice journal of 1770, in which he recounts a visit to Galuppi in misattributions, with movements sometimes duplicated, follows an Allegro moderato, appropriately livelier than where the merchants were the kings?. For Browning all Venice and the latter’s definition of music, which should transposed or misplaced. its tempo indication might suggest, and a final Allegro in that was left was ‘dust and ashes’. Galuppi’s first music consist of ‘vaghessa, chiarezza and buona madulazione’ The Sonata in B flat major, Illy 14, is in three 3/8. The Sonata in D minor, Illy 56, preserved in a Venice lessons were with his father, a barber and a violinist in a (sic). He describes Galuppi as ‘a good harpsichord player’ movements, the first an Andantino with an excursion into manuscript, is in two movements, the first a melancholy neighbouring theatre. Galuppi dared to write his first and refers also to his clavichord, an instrument to which the minor that seems to foreshadow Mozart. It is followed operatic Andantino and the second a contrasting and opera, La fede nell’inconstanza (Faith in Inconstancy), a a number of the sonatas are well suited. In Venice in 1748 by an ebullient Scarlattian Allegro assai in 3/4, leading to spirited Presto. The final work included here is the Sonata pastoral fable, at the age of sixteen and it was staged in Galuppi had been appointed vice maestro di cappella at a final dramatic Giga. The Sonata in D minor, Illy 2, is in D major, Illy 1, included in Thomas Walsh’s pub- 1722 in Chioggia and Vicenza. Its predictable failure led St Mark’s and in 1762 became maestro di cappella, with one of the sonatas included in Thomas Walsh’s Op. 2 set lication of 1759. The first of the three movements follows him to serious study and to lessons in composition and the additional position of maestro di coro at the Ospedale of six Galuppi sonatas. The first of the two movements, the pattern of a right-hand melody, offered over an harpsichord with Antonio Lotti, first organist at St Mark’s degli Incurabili. From 1765 to 1768 he served at the court marked, like the second, Allegro, suggests an earlier style unobtrusive accompaniment from the left hand. The in Venice and some years later to reach the position of of Catherine the Great in St Petersburg, where he was of writing, and is capped by a Giga in 12/8. The Sonata second movement bursts in with characteristic élan and primo maestro di cappella. Lotti, having spent a few years court composer and director of music for the Italian court in C minor, Illy 34, opens with an improvisatory intro- the sonata ends with a brilliant set of increasingly in Dresden, had by this time retired from the composition opera. In Venice once more he took up his former duction, with passages of quasi-recitative. The second of elaborate variations. of opera. He nevertheless held a leading position in the positions, still composing for the theatre, but increasingly the three movements moves again into the world of Keith Anderson music of Venice, with other pupils including Benedetto providing oratorios and other sacred music for the Marcello, Michelangelo Gasparini and perhaps Hasse. Ospedale degli Incurabili. He died in January 1785. Galuppi worked first in Florence, where, in 1726, he As a keyboard-player Galuppi was much admired. His served as harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola, before many keyboard sonatas, however, remained largely returning in 1728 to Venice, where his second opera, unpublished, although many of them found their way Gl’odi delusi dal sangue, a collaboration with Lotti’s round Europe in manuscript copies, with over a hundred pupil Giovanni Battista Pescetti, was staged at the Teatro listed in the thematic catalogue of Hedda Illy and 130 S. Angelo. Further operas followed over some fifty years, sonatas, toccatas and divertimenti mentioned in more settings of libretti by Zeno and Metastasio and then in recent publications. The sonatas published in his lifetime fruitful collaborations with Goldoni. In 1740 Galuppi was include the two sets of six sonatas, Op. 1 and Op. 2, issued appointed maestro di musica at the Ospedale dei by Walsh in London in 1756 and 1759 respectively. A Mendicanti. The following year he was granted leave of final set of six sonatas, Passatempo al Cembalo (Pastime absence for a visit to England, where he spent some at the Harpsichord), was written in 1781 towards the end eighteen months, supervising eleven productions for the of Galuppi’s long life, dedicated to the future Paul I of Italian opera at the King’s Theatre, with four works of Russia on the occasion of his incognito visit to Venice, but his own, the last performed after his return to Venice. To not published. The thematic catalogue by Hedda Illy does the first opera of Lord Middlesex’s new company Handel not attempt to put the sonatas in any chronological order. makes jocular and disparaging reference in a letter from The first 28 of the catalogue follow Fausto Torrefranca’s 8.572490 2 3 8.572490.

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