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Home , Ettore Panizza, Eugenia Tadolini, Eugenio Cavallini, Gaetano Rossi, Giacomo Roppa, Giuseppina Pasqua

From the Glicibarifono to the : A Chapter in the History of in Italy*

Fabrizio Della Seta

From the very beginnings of , the work of the theatre composer was carried out in close contact with, if not founded upon, the performer. At least until half-way through the nineteenth century, a composer would be judged in large part on his ability to make best use of the vocal resources of the singers for whom he was writing in a given season, to model his music on their individual qualities in the same way as (in terms of an often- repeated image) a tailor models the suit to the contours of his client's body, or (to use a more noble comparison) as a sculptor exploits the particular material characteristics of a block of marble. Even Verdi at the time of his greatest prestige, when he was in a position to impose his dramatic ideas in an almost dictatorial manner, drew inspiration from the abilities of respected performers, e.g. from for or for . To a less decisive extent, but according to a concept similar in every respect, the same principle had been applied to the instrumental aspect of opera since the early decades of the eighteenth century, when the began to assume growing importance in the structure of a work. Often the presence in the theatre orchestra of a gifted instrumentalist would lead the composer to assign to him a prominent solo, almost always as if competing with voice as an obbligato part, and there were cases in which instrumentalist and composer coincided, as happened in certain by Handel. In Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, we owe the existence of the marvellous arias with clarinet and basset obbligato to the playing of Anton Stadler; in Rossini's Neapolitan operas it was the virtuosity of the San Carlo orchestral principals in the 1810s that persuaded him to multiply the instrumental introduction to arias and ensemble pieces, an example that was followed by all his successors up until Verdi. And a propos of Verdi, the solo in the Trio in I Lombardi alla prima crociata, written for , should also be mentioned in this context, along with the Prelude with obbligato in for Alfredo Piatti, principal cello of the orchestra at Her Majesty's Theatre, , and, even as late as 1862, the clarinet solo that introduces the third act of , for Ernesto Cavallini. That these passages were valued by the public can also be deduced from the fact that the best instrumental soloist enjoyed the privilege, traditionally reserved for singers, of taking part in the various gala and benefit concerts that formed a corollary of the opera season.

* This essay was published in Italian in Bianca Maria Antolini, Teresa Gialdroni, and Annunziato Pugliese (eds.), «Et facciam dolçi canti». Studi in onore di Agostino Ziino in occasione del suo 65° compleanno, II, (Lucca, 2003), p. 1111-1132; there may be found the original documents in Italian which in this present article era published in English translation only. I am grateful to the editors and to the publisher for permission to publish this version in English. Financial support for this research was provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research and by the University of Pavia. From the Glicibarifono to the

This tradition, however, had consequences that went beyond individual productions. Apart from being one of the ways in which a taste for playing and listening to instrumental music was cultivated in Italy, for composer the opportunity of assigning a prominent passage to a given instrument was also a way to exploring its technical and expressive characteristics, of trying out new timbral combinations; in sum, of developing a characteristic orchestral style. Only recently has this aspect begun to receive the attention it deserves,1 and the documents and music presented here are by way of a small contribution to this research.2 In organological histories and specialised dictionaries, one comes across the name of "glicibarifono", described (by one of the most authoritative) thus:

A bass clarinet. It was invented by Catterino Catterini, a clarinet maker active in (possibly also in ), who first performed on the instrument in Modena on 12 February 1838 [?]. Pitched in C and built of boxwood with brass and copper mounts, a surviving specimen (Oxford, Bate Collection) has 24 keys with elaborate mechanism and an unusual bore. It is constructed with a double parallel bore in a single block of wood of oval section. The mouthpiece is attached by a curved crook and a bell is mounted on the top of the rising tube.3

1 The subject was the object of research sponsored by the Istituto Nazionale di Studi Verdiani in in the context of "Musical life and musical institutions in Europe (1660-1900)", a project co-ordinated by Franco Piperno. See Piperno et al., "Le orchestre dei teatri d'opera italiani nell'Ottocento. Bilancio provvisorio di una ricerca", Studi Verdiani 11 (1996), p. 119-121, which includes reference to the scarce previous bibliography.

2 I should like to take this opportunity to offer a general thank-you to all the people who have furnished me with information or made suggestions for my research: Alessandra Campana, Michele Girardi, Elisabetta Pasquini, Antonio Rostagno, Gloria Staffieri, and Anna Tedesco, Stefano Bianchi, curator of the Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl in , Hélène La Rue, curator of the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments of the Faculty of Music of the University of Oxford, and Anne Meurant, in charge of iconography at the Musée des Instruments de Musique in Brussels, all gave permission for photographs of instruments in their respective collections to be reproduced here. Especially warm thanks to Renato Meucci for both the quality and quantity of the material he shared with me, to Franco Rossi, librarian of the Fondazione Ugo and Olga Levi in , for facilitating my research in the archives of the Teatro , and to Gabriele Dotto for permitting me to work in the Archivio Storico Ricordi in the difficult time preceding its move from where it had been housed for more than forty years.

3 Niaal O'Loughlin, "Glicibarifono", in: The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, (London, 1984), vol. 2, p. 52. Another, more accurate description, also based on the example in the Bate Collection, is to be found in F. Geoffrey Rendall, The Clarinet.Some Notes in Its History and Construction (London-New York, 1971), p. 143: "This ingenious instrument is made from a single block of boxwood of oval section, some 23 inches [58.42 cm] in length. Two parallel bores are pierced in it in the manner of the butt-joint of a . A long brass crook carries the mouthpiece, while the other end of the bore terminates in a widely-flared upstanding bell of wood. Twenty-four cleverly contrived brass key, mounted in saddles, cover correctly-located tone-holes of adequate size. These with a biggish bore of modern dimensions, give a tone of no mean vigour and quality. The specimen examined by the writer is pitched in C and extended downwards chromatically to c [sic]". Rendall adds that the glicibarifono attracted the attention of the Franco-Greek clarinettist Hyacinthe-Éléonore Klosé (1808-1880) who pointed it out to Jean-Georges Kastner, who in turn mentioned the instrument in the Supplement to his 1844 Cours d'instrumentation. Fabrizio della Seta

The description is based on the example, one of Catterini's originals, preserved in the Bate Collection (see figs. 1 and 2).4

Figures 1-2: Glicibarifono by Catterino Catterini (c. 1830), Bate Collection, Music Faculty, University of (Oxford (by kind permission).

4 Inventory no. 496.The index card in the collection's catalogue provides information to complete that given above: the instrument is 80cm long in total, with 25 (not 24) brass keys, 8 for the thumbs, 17 for the other fingers, two of which are elongated to form levers that can be operated by any of the fingers. Engraved upon it is the following stamp: "N° 3. / Premiata invenzione / di / CATTERINO CATTERINI / IN / PADOVA". From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

At least two further examples, by different makers, are however in existence: one in the Musée des Instruments de Musique in Brussels (fig. 3),5 another in the Museo Teatrale Carlo Schmidl in Trieste (fig. 4).6

Figure 3: Glicibarifono by Paolo Maino, Figure 4: Gicibarifono (mid-nineteenth Musée des instruments de musique, century), Civico Museo Teatrale Carlo Brussels (by kind permission). Schmidl, Trieste (by kind permission).

5 Inventory no. 941, cf. Victor-Charles Mahillon, Catalogue descriptif et analytique du Musée instrumental du Conservatoire de Bruxelles (Gand, second edition, 1909), 222-223. "This instrument, which carries the stamp 'P [aolo] Maino à ' is none other than a bass clarinet in C, with a double vertical bore. [...] The bell, the neck into which the crook fits and the crook itself are made of brass, the other parts are wooden. The lower section, to which the bell is attached, and the upper section, into which fits the neck, are joined together by two fastening at the double-bored part of the instrument called the butt-joint. As with the bassoon, the two bores are connected at the bottom of the butt-joint by a conduit. The glicibarifono is pierced by 22 lateral tone-holes; nos. 1, 2, 5, 7, 12, 17 and 19 have open keys, nos. 4, 9, 11, 14 and 16 are free; nos. 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20, 21 and 22 have closed keys. Range [from C1 to B flat2] –– Total length, including crook, with the tubes laid end to end, 1.7m; length with the doubled bore, 86cm." This description forms the basis of that given by Giampiero Tintori in Gli strumenti musicali (Turin, 1971), vol. 2, p. 76.

6 Inventory no. CMSA 10492 (olim 1013). This instruments seems of more recent construction and has similar characteristics to the one in Brussels. Its length is 80cm, but the main section forms about half the total while the rest is made up of two distinct tubes, one of which end in a bell made entirely of brass, the other extended by means of a crook, also brass, curved like a goose's neck, in which is inserted the mouthpiece. The instrument was bought by Giovanni Gengross on 31 december 1883. C.f. also Laura Ruaro Loseri (ed.) Strumenti musicali europei ed extrauropei. Mostra allestita dai civici Musei di storia ed arte di Trieste, Museo Teatrale di fondazione Carlo Schmidl, 4 ottobre 1979 - 15 maggio 1980, exibition catalogue (Udine, 1979), p. 16: "In two places there is the stamp, almost illegible, F. LOESCHMIDT IN...?". Fabrizio della Seta

The few details concerning the instrument's use that have so far come to light are derived from an entry in Alessandro Gandini's Cronistoria dei Teatri di Modena:

12 February 1838: Catterino Catterini, from Bologna, makes an appearance between the acts of the opera [Chiara di Rosenberg] and the ballet D. Euticchio with an instrument he has invented, to no mean applause. The instrument in question, which the present writer carefully listened to and observed, is called "Glicibarifono". It is a member of the clarinet family, and indeed its high notes had the character of the Clarino, the low notes that of the Clarone or Basset Horn. The basis of the instrument was the clarinet, with modifications to obtain a greater range, and with the same mouthpiece and reed. Its bell was made of brass and it had about the same register and range of the bassoon, but with a sweeter and more sonorous voice. Nowadays the instrument s used to good effect in the bands of central Italy.7

The evidence concerning Catterino Catterini is sparse and unconfirmed; as can be seen from the quoted reports, it is not even certain which city he was from. Yet he was active in many areas of instruments development and production: in 1830s he contributed to the evolution of the pedal .8 In the Gazzetta musicale di Milano carried the following report on him:

New musical discovery. From the pages of the Osservatore Triestino: "We have it on good authority that Professor Catterino Catterini, inventor of the gold-metal-winning Glicibarifono, has made a new and interesting discovery. He has hit upon a very simple way of tuning the reed pipes of an organ, by means of turning a little watchmaker's key to move a tuning wire up or down the tongue inside each pipe. The first practical trials of this discovery was carried out with great success and to general satisfaction on the monastery organ of the Reverend Fathers of Pirano, in the presence of Mr. Ventrella, music maestro of the city, Count Stefano Rota, the noted amateur organist, and Mr. Dal Seno.

7 Luigi Francesco Valdrighi and Giorgio Ferrari-Moreni (eds.), Cronistoria dei teatri di Modena dal 1539 al 1871 del maestro Alessandro Gandini, arricchita d'interessanti notizie e continuata fino al presente (Modena, 1883; reprinted Bologna, n.d.), Part 1, p.363.

8 Renato Meucci, "I timpani e gli strumenti a percussione nell'Ottocento italiano", Studi verdiani, 13 (1998), p. 193-254: 189, n. 35, taken from Luigi Francesco Valdrighi, Nomocheliurgografia antica e moderna, ossia elenco di fabbricanti di strumenti armonici (Modena, 1884; expanded 1888-94; reprinted Bologna, 1967), p. 134. From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

This extremely useful find will no doubt get rid of many of the inconveniences of the method used up until now, and because tuning will be obtained with the most perfect speed and exactitude, conservation of organs will improve."9

The glicibarifono was in any event the most noted product of his genius, for which in 1833 he received the gold medal of the Istituto Lombardo di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti,10 and which he exhibited to great acclaim in many cities; to the appearance in Modena mentioned above we can add a document relating to a request, granted, to hold a gala concert at the Teatro Ducale di Parma in 1837,11 and news of a performance at the Teatro Nuovo, Trieste, on 18 May 1847.12 More important, however, is the fact that from as early as the 1833-4 Carnival season Catterini appeared as glicibarifono-player on the list of instrumentalist employed by the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.13 More than a year later, on 15 June 1835, he appeared in an "Accademia vocale ed instrumentale a benefizio della Pia Istituzione dell'orchestra", playing a set of "Variazioni obbligate al glicibarifono", almost certainly of his own invention.14

9 Gazzetta musicale di Milano, 10/10 (7 March 1852), p. 44. The report is also reproduced in L'Italia musicale, 4 (1852), p. 79.

10 C.f. Gabriele Rocchetti and Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, "Gli strumenti musicali premiati dall'Istituto Lombardo di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti nell'Ottocento", Liuteria musica e cultura, 1 (1998), p. 3-17: 12. The gold medal was awarded to "Catterino Catterini, from Monselice" for a "New wind instrument". That he was in fact from Monselice, near Padua, is confirmed by the following entry, to which my attention was drawn by Renato Meucci, contained in Carlo Della Giacoma's two-volume manuscript Dizionario del musicista of 1911 (Todi, Zaffarami Berlenghini private collection), vol 2, no page number: "Glicibarifono. Double-reed [sic] invented in 1833 by Catterino Catterini from Monselice; the sound of this instrument is something like a mixture of the basson and the clarinet. The inventor himself gave the first concert on his Glicibarifono on 8 March 1834 at La Fenice in Venice, and the Accademia di belle arti gave the instrument, now totally disappeared, its name". The source of the information given by Della Giacoma (1858-1929) is unknown; however it should be noted that 8 March 1834 was the date of the première of Mercadante's Emma di Antiochia (see below).

11 The document is listed in the inventory of the theatre archive; see Roberta Cristofori, Claudia Codeluppi, and Renata Disarò (eds.), Inventario dell'Archivio storico del di Parma (Parma, 1837), Fascicolo III, "Spettacoli", which can be browsed at the address http://archivio.bibliocom.unipr.it/regio/carteggi/1837.htm. Here the instrument is called a "glicibarisofono", probably a misreading.

12 Reproduced in Ruaro Loseri (ed.), Strumenti musicali europei ed extraeuropei (see n. 6), p. 16.

13 C.f. Michele Girardi and Franco Rossi, Il Teatro La Fenice. Cronologia degli spettacoli 1792-1936 (Venice: Albrizzi, 1989), p. 121. All the chronology used in this essay is taken from this publication.

14 C.f. Girardi and Rossi, Il Teatro La Fenice, p. 135. As a measure of the interest in this kind of instrument, we might add that on 15 December 1834, at a gala concert given by the Società Apollinea, a certain Salieri had played a concerto for basset horn and a concerto for clarinet (p. 123). Fabrizio della Seta

A document preserved in the Fenice archives represent a notable addition to our understanding of the matter. It is a letter from Catterini to the theatre management:

Most Respected and Noble Board of Directors, The undersigned, Professor and inventor of the wind instrument called the Glicibarifono (winner of the Gold Medal), being at his liberty for the forthcoming Carnival Season, is eager to offer his work to the Noble Board, in order that it might be put to use by being once more introduced into the service of the their renown orchestra. Neither the name of the undersigned Professor, nor the instrument mentioned above will be new to the Board, insofar as he had the honour on other occasion to serve said great Theatre, with the most fortunate success. The proof of this is the most honourable Certificate that said Noble Board saw fit to grant him, and of which he goes so far as herewith to include a copy, along with a letter addressed to him by the most illustrious Maestro . After the many fortunate successes subsequently had by this instrument of his production in the most prestigious venues, to wit, , Milan, Bologna, Parma, et cetera, he feels justified in hoping to obtain from the Refined Venetian Public a reception even more favourable than that, his greatest pride, previously granted him. This versatile instrument, of great range, would considerably enhance, with its new, pathetical voice, musical effects in the service of Opera as much as Ballet. Reflecting on all this, may same Noble Board draw profit from it and lend an ear to the ardent pleas of one of their fellow citizens, who for such a boon would be eternally grateful. Looking forward to a favourable reply to the present humblest of suits. and claiming the honour of presenting his entire esteem to Their Most Illustrious Lordship,

Spalato, 14/11/53 Their Devoted Humble Servant, Catterino Catterini15

It will be noted that Catterini calls himself a "fellow citizen" of the theatre administrator; given that from the document reproduced above his city of origin seems to have been Monselice, it is possible that he means the designation as "fellow citizen of the Venetian State", in the manner of the Ancien Régime, perhaps in an effort to secure the benevolence of his interlocutors. The provenance of the letter confirms that during those years Catterini was active between Dalmatia and Istria, and an examination of the relevant local archives would perhaps furnish further information.

15 Preserved in the Archivio Storico of the Teatro La Fenice (housed at the Fondazione Levi, Venice, henceforward I-Vt), in the folder "Orchestra, Massime e Carteggi, 1852-1875". From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

Two further documents are enclosed with the letter, transcribed in Catterini's own hand:

Copy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Grand Theatre La Fenice This is to certify That according to the records of the managing company of this theatre, Mr Catterino Catterini was a member of the theatre's own orchestra in the Carnival and Lent season of 1833-4, where he held the position of Professor of the Glicibarifono, an instrument for which Maestro Saverio Mercadante wrote a solo in his opera, Emma di Antiochia, composed that very season. Equally, that in the gala concert given in aid of the Pious Institution of the Orchestra on 6 April 1835, the said Mr Catterino Catterini performed a Concerto on the above-mentioned instrument, to the general approval of the audience. Venice, 26 February 1845 G. Berti (in his own hand) Chairman

Trieste, 11 October 1847 Dear Sir, It is with pleasure that I accede to your wish that I write to declare the advantageous effect on me produced by the instrument you have invented, namely the Glicibarifono, when I had occasion to compose a special part for it in my opera Emma di Antiochia in Venice. Let me add to the many favourable remarks I have already made to you about the instrument in question, which I should like to see adopted in all and bands, sure of the most happy results. Meanwhile please accept the most sincere and regard from one who prizes being able to call himself Your admirer Saverio Mercadante (in his own hand) To Mr Catterino Catterini Distinguished Professor of Music

Emma di Antiochia, with a by , was the last opera, and only new one, of the Carnival season of 1833-4, after , (first act only) and . The first performance was on Saturday 8 March 1834, with repeat performances on the 9th, 13th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 22th. In spite of a first rate cast, including , , , Orazio Cartagenova and , the production was not a great success (such that the score was not even published in its entirety, only a few extracts) and the opera did not enter the repertory.16 The columnist of the Gazzetta privilegiata di Venezia wrote that "as for the music, it must be confessed that Maestro Mercadante's

16 It had only one Fenice revival, as the first opera of the 1839-40 Carnival season (c.f. Girardi and Rossi, Il Teatro La Fenice (see n. 13), p. 145). Fabrizio della Seta effort fell a long way short of the success we should have hoped for [...]. It is true that there are some nice piece in it, and an instrumental ensemble which, thanks to the performance of the orchestra, was exquisite and admirable, but not much imagination or ispiration"; in any case, he found space to point out that

In amongst the new music there was to be heard a new instrument, the Glicibarifono [sic], whose range encompasses that of both clarinet and bassoon, i.e. it has the range of both of them put together. Its inventor and player is Mr Caterini Caterino, who was greatly applauded, as much for the instrument itself as for his masterly playing of it.17

The solo Mercadante wrote specially for Catterini forms the instrumental introduction to the Trio Emma-Ruggero-Corrado, in the second act of the opera. Example 118 shows a transcription taken from the autograph score of Emma di Antiochia,19 with the orchestra accompaniment in short score. Without the support provided by Catterini's letter it would have been more difficult to link the passage to the glicibarifono, to the extent that Mercadante does not use that name; rather, he assign it to the "controclarinetto"––I am unaware of any corroborating designation in other sources. The range of the instrument turns out to be decidedly wider than that indicated by Mahillon,20 indeed than that of the bass clarinet:21 a good three- and-a-half octaves, from C1 to F4,22 and the ability to execute quick arpeggios and wide leaps in the high register. The passage takes the form of a mini-concerto, exploiting all the instrument's capabilities in the three distinct section: an introductory , partly improvised, a pathetic cantabile and a "passo caratteristico", rich in . The whole has a completeness and a formal autonomy that place it more in the realm of the harp solo in the of the following year, and also that of the violin solo in I Lombardi, than with the pathetic instrumental cantabiles of Rossini and Bellini. The score of Emma di Antiochia reveals, however, another aspect, less ostentatious but perhaps mor interesting for future developments: Mercadante did not limit himself to solo use of the glicibarifono, and in many numbers employed the instrument as part of the

17 Gazzetta privilegiata di Venezia, 58 (11 March 1834).

18 The Music examples are published in an appendix to the present article.

19 Milan, Archivio Storico Ricordi. I have also examined the complete copy of the opera preserved in I-Vt, which does not differ substantially from the original.

20 See n. 5 above.

21 Berlioz gives the B-flat bass clarinet's range as D1-F4 (sounding pitch), and advises against over use the high register: c.f. , Grande trattato di istrumentazione e d'orchestrazione moderne, translated by Alberto Mazzucato, 1844, with an appendix by (Milano, 1912), Part 2, p. 43-44. The modern bass clarinet, whether in B flat or A, descends to C sharp1, while notes higer than F4 are considered "forced".

22 Note that in the first half of bar 29 Mercadante originally wrote an arpeggio reaching C4, then changed it to go up to F4. From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet orchestra ensemble, generally doubling the an octave below or in unison with the . More on this below. The history of the glicibarifono in Venice might end here, given that neither the instrument nor its inventor had further opportunities of being heard in that city. There may, however, be a sequel, albeit an indirect one, suggested by the fact that only a few years later, from the Carnival season of 1837-8 onwards, the Fenice orchestra could count on the regular presence of an instrument called "clarino basso" (also "clarin basso"), which remained in the orchestra for exactly ten years, up until 1846-7, before disappearing. once again, use of the instrument was linked with the presence of a specific player, regularly named in the list of "professori d'orchestra" included on the initial pages of the printed libretto; his name was Pietro Fornari, and in the oldest of these he is designated its "inventore e fabbricatore".23 His invention, like Catterini's before it, was awarded a prize, for the following reason:

The high sounds of the instruments and the low sounds of the bass ones form two extremes that in orchestra are never sufficiently brought together by the and . Catterini's glicibarifono seemed destined to fill this gap, but owing to the bore of the instrument being bent in two where the halves are joined together, the column of air is strangled, to the detriment of perfect intonation. Fornari, who had been engaged in the construction of his clarin-basso for several years already, managed to curve the tube inside the barrel of the instrument in such a way as to allow the column of air to fold back upon itself uniformly and expand without rebounding or being strangled, and has thus been able to ensure perfect intonation. Moreover, the clarin-basso is the wind instrument with the greatest known range; it can run through the chromatic scale from low B flat to high D, i.e. four-and-a-third octaves. It can play the cello part with complete success, in doing so proving that it blends well the stringed instrument too. The middle-range sounds are full and melodious; equally sweet and rounded are the low notes; smooth and penetrating the high notes, retaining the same eveness of tone across all degrees of the chromatic scale. Judging it a useful addition to the industrial means of making the most sweet art of music, the Imperial Royal Institute awarded the instrument a silver medal.24

23 LE DUE / ILLUSTRI RIVALI / MELODRAMMA IN TRE ATTI / DA RAPPRESENTARSI / NEL NUOVO / GRAN TEATRO LA FENICE / NEL CARNOVALE E QUADRAGESIMA 1837-38 (Venice: Tipografia Molinari, 1838).

24 Collezione degli Atti delle solenni distribuzioni de' premj d'industria fatte in Milano ed in Venezia dall'anno 1833 al 1839 (Milan, 1839), vol. 6, p. 322-323; c.f. also Rocchetti and Rossi Rognoni, "Gli strumenti musicali premiati dall'Istituto Lombardo di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti nell'Ottocento" (see n. 10), p. 12, where the prize is awarded to the "Clarin-basso, nuovo istromento musico". Renato Meucci, who passed on the references to me, tells me that Pietro Fornari was the son of Andrea (1753-1841), the most important Venetian wind-instrument maker of the preceding generation, who had also been awarded a silver medal in 1821 (c.f. ibid). Fabrizio della Seta

Given that the first confirmed use of the bass clarinet in an opera is Meyerbeer's in the fifth act of in 1936, it would be possible to see in the Venetian theatre's interest in the instrument a consequence of that opera's renown.25 But Gli ugonotti was firs given in Italy only in the 1841-2 season (at the Teatro La Pergola in , with the title Gli anglicani),26 and made it way among other Italian theatres quite slowly over the following years, in part precisely because they were not generally able to satisfy its orchestral requirements.27 Any influence it might have had must therefore have been very indirect, and in fact it seems unlikely that alone among all the aspects that came together to form the prestige of Parisian grand opéra, the bass clarinet should be the one Italian theatres sought to imitate. Might not an alternative hypothesis be put forward––that it was the succes of Catterini and his glicibarifono that convinced those in charge at the Teatro La Fenice to introduce into the orchestra, on a regular basis, if not the same instrument (given that in the meantime its inventor had made himself unavailable), at least one similar, and that prompted an enterprising instrument maker-performer to perfect one of his own?

25 Meyerbeer used a bass clarinet made by Louis-Auguste Buffet. Around the same time Adolphe Sax perfected his own model, which was quickly adopted and become the universal standard: c.f. Diethard Riehm's entry "Klarinetten, II", in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Zweite, neubearbeitete Ausgabe (Kassel, 1996), Sachteil, vol. 5, col. 193.

26 The libretto printed for the occasion (Florence, 1842) carries a list of the orchestral principals, in which there is no mention of a bass clarinettist, and Gloria Staffieri has confirmed to me that the orchestra of the did not normally have one. Luigi Ferdinando Casamorata, reviewing the Italian translation of Berlioz's Grande trattato di strumentazione in the Gazzetta musicale di Milano, 6/30 (28 July 1847), p. 237, states that at the première of Gli ugonotti in Florence the instrument was replaced by the B-flat clarinet, "(obviously an octave higer than the maestro wanted) because they didn't have a bass clarinet, and perhaps didn't even know of the existence".

27 Antonio Torosoni, Trattato pratico di strumentazione (Milan, [1851]), p. 27, devotes a short paragraph to the bass clarinet in B flat, in which he states that it has been "used for a short while now in France" and that "the obbligato part of the Trio in Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots was written specially for the instrument. A bass clarinet in C still exists [...] but is, however, little used". Immediately afterwards Torosoni describes the "bimbonclaro", another version of bass clarinet with a range from B flat0 to B flat4: "This instrument is extraordinarily interesting. It replaces the old Clarone, of which it is a more perfect and more powerful version, thanks to the highly respected Professor of Clarinet and Instrument Maker Mr. Giovanni Bimboni of Florence. [...] Its sound is creditably human in the melodic register, strong at the bottom, and sweet at the top. [...] The highly respected Maestro Mr. Luigi Mara Viviani wrote an extraordinarily successful obbligato part for this instrument for Mr. Antonio Cortes's Grand Ballet Fausto". Note that Torosoni was first horn in the Florentine orchestra, and as such took part in the première of Gli ugonotti / Gli anglicani. From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

Whatever the facts of the case, in that decade the clarino basso28 was an object of interest for the most important composer who wrote new operas for the Teatro La Fenice. Notwithstanding its first explicit mention in the libretto printed for Le due illustri rivali referred to earlier, its first use was by Donizetti, who, in (30 January 1838), entrusted to the instrument the long instrumental introduction to the second act (see Example 2).29 In this beautiful excerpt Donizetti makes good use of its singing qualites, and the coloratura passages too are clearly inspired, more than Mercadante's, by the vocal style of the 1830s. Also noteworthy is the skilled use of changes of register, in particular in the first bar of the second page, with its isolated low Ds. The attractions of this instrumental section did not, of course, keep Maria de Rudenz from becoming one of the most clamorous failures of Donizetti's career, and in fact none of the reviews published to mark the occasion, all taken up with criticising the libretto and the music, found space to mention them. On 10 March the same year Mercadante was once more on the programme at the Teatro La Fenice with Le due illustri rivali, to a libretto by , enjoying notable success. In the opera there are no solos for bass clarinet: evidently the composer wanted to avoid giving the Venetian audience what he himself had given them a few years earlier, and that his colleague from was offering that very season. All the same, an instrument called the "controclarinetto"–– obviously Mercadante's habitual name for the lowest instrument of the family––is present in every number of the opera,30 used ad an integral part of the woodwinds, sometimes doubling the orchestral bass, sometimes in basson or cello melodies, or, finally, contributing to the sonority of chords made up of just wind instruments. All this appear much more significant when it is borne in mind that Wagner, who is considered the true discoverer of the orchestral role of the bass clarinet, introduced it for the first time in the Tannhäuser (1845-7), where, all the things considered, it was used in a still quite conventional (if very attractive) way in order to give a particular sonority to just one scene.31 Only in Lohengrin (1848) did he give it the

28 I shall use the original name to distinguish Fornari's instrument from the modern one, which I am unable to say how much it resembled.

29 The passage is reproduced from the vocal score published in Milan by Francesco Lucca c.1845. Naturally the melody should be read an octave lower; the accompaniment was entrusted to the harp. In the copy of the full score preserved in the I-Vt the solo instrument is called a "clarin basso" and, as in the examples cited below, it is consider a non-transposing instrument using bass and clefs.

30 According to the copy in I-Vt.

31 In Elisabeth's third-act prayer, "Allmächtige Jungfrau!", where the bass clarinet takes on the role of soloist in a passage scored entirely for woodwinds (the instrumentation is analysed in Wolfgang Witzenmann, Grundzüge der Instrumentation in den Opern Verdis und Wagners, in: Friedrich Lippman (ed.) Colloquium "Verdi - Wagner" Rom 1969. Bericht, (Cologne - Vienna, 1972; Analecta Musicologica, 11), p. 304-326: 319. Fabrizio della Seta role it has since made its own in the modern orchestra.32 Although the precedent of Mercadante has remained unknown up until now, it would be unfair to downplay the prophetic aspect of this experiment, all the more so because in was at precisely that time that he was beginning to carry out what he would later call his "reform". To Mercadante we owe also the second example of solistic use of the clarino basso, more traditional and yet different from both his predecessors and Donizetti, in La solitaria delle Asturie, first produced on 12 March 1840, his last opera written for the Teatro La Fenice.33 The first number of the opera, a vast dawn tableau entitled "L'aurora. Preludio ed Introduzione", includes the protagonist's prayer ("Pace ad un anima / trista e pentita") accompanied by a "clarin basso" and a harp, both on stage. The wind instrument prefigures, in the Bellinian manner, the melancholy vocal melody, and goes on to accompany it in the rest of the piece (Example 3 reproduces the instrumental introduction),34 after which it drops out the score , never to return. In the operas composed especially for the Teatro La Fenice over the following years, no further prominent solos for clarino basso are to be found, indeed, as far as can be established, it is not even listed in the scores.35 All the same, the instrument and its player-inventor appear regularly in the list of "professori d'orchestra" in the relevant librettos, from which we learn that was apparently involved no a regular

32 See Egon Voss, Studien zur Instrumentation Richard Wagners (Resenburg, 1970; Studien zur Musikgeschichte del 19. Jahrhuderts, 24), p.165-168. At about the same time Berlioz used the bass clarinet in the Benvenuto Cellini (1838; no. 21, Sextuor) and in La Damnation de Faust (1846; "Menuets des follets" and "Pandaemonium"); Meyerbeer employed it in all his operas after Les Huguenots except L'Etoile du nord (although the instrument was there in the work in which L'Etoile originated, Ein Feldlager in Schlesien of 1844), and in L'Africaine he even had two.

33 The 1839-40 Carnival season had opened with the revival of Emma di Antiochia, in which the part of the glicibarifono could have been given to the clarino basso. In any case, here the name of Fornari does not appear in the libretto.

34 Transcribed from the copy in I-Vt. I was unable to examine the autograph, which belongs to the Archivio Storico Ricordi. The copies preserved in I-Vt are the ones that the composer was contractually obliged to leave in the theatre's possession, and were made directly from the original in the days following the first performances.

35 The following full score of operas written for the Teatro La Fenice in that decade and preserved in I-Vt do not incorporate bass clarinet: Rosmunda in Ravenna (Paladini-Lillo, 1837-38); La sposa di Messina (Cabianca-accai, 1838-39); Clemenza di Valois (Rossi-Gabussi, 1840-41); Giuditta (Peruzzini-Levi, 1843-44); Alberigo da Romano (Berti-Malipiero, 1846-47). I was unable to examine the following: Maria Regina d'Inghilterra (Zennari-Ferrari, 1839-40); Ginevra di Monreale (De Boni-Combi, 1840-41); Margherita di York (Sacchero-Nini, Spring 1841); Il duca d'Alba (Peruzzini-Pacini, 1841-42); Gli avventurieri (Romani-Buzzolla, Spring 1842); Lorenzino de Medici (Piave-Pacini, 1844-45); La sposa d'Abido (Peruzzini-Poniatowsky, 1845-46). From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet basis not only in performances of those same operas,36 but also in those of both works already deemed "classic" and more recent successes, in whose original scoring the clarino basso had not figured.37 Even though these lists were admittedly reproduced mechanically form one libretto to the next, and therefore do not necessarily represent the reality of a particular performance, it is strange that the clarino basso was listed as part of the normal theatre orchestra even in season in which no opera specifically called for it; one possible explanation is that it was used to strengthen the orchestra bass-line (as Mercadante expressly required in Le due illustri rivali) and was assigned a part derived from a composite of a number of other parts. The story ends with Verdi's (9 March 1844). The solo for clarino basso that introduces and accompanies the Scena Carlo at the beginning of the third act is too well-known to require any commentary;38 for present purposes it will suffice to place the passage in a tradition that was by that time already well established. On the other hand we should bear in mind that, as the revealed, Verdi initially conceived it as a solo,39 realistically accompanied by solemn chords. The new idea came to him when, on sitting down to orchestrate the opera, he realized that he had ad unusual instrument at his disposal, one well- suited to the scene's funereal atmosphere: this is a particularly clear example of a creative process founded on direct contact with the reality of performance.

36 To be precise, all those mentioned in the preceeding note except Rosmunda in Ravenna.

37 Among which , , , , , , , , , , La favorita, , , , , Nabucodonosor, Roberto il diavolo, I Lombardi alla prima Crociata, Giovanna d'Arco (the last mention of Pietro Fornari is in the libretto printed for this opera in the Autumn 1847 season). The complete data may now be accessed easily on the cd-rom La Fenice. Un secolo di libretti d'opera 1792/1891, © 1997 Teatro La Fenice. Probably the clarino basso was also used in ballets, whose librettos never have orchestra lists.

38 See , Ernani, Dramma Lirico in four acts / in quattro atti di , edited by / a cura di Claudio Gallico, (-Milan, 1985; The Works of / Le opere di Giuseppe Verdi, series I, vol. 5), p. 317-318. The first page of the autograph of this number is reproduced in table 3 of the Facsimiles section. At the Teatro La Fenice the player was, as usual, Pietro Fornari; the Critical Commentary (p. 90-91) reveals that the theatres without bass clarinet (that is, for a long time all the theatres in Italy) substituted other instruments, for example a horn or an .

39 See the reconstruction in Verdi, Ernani, p. 423, Appendix 1, D, and the relative section of the Critical Commentary, p. 115. For a fuller discussion of the passage, see Philip Gosset, "The Composition of Ernani", in: Carolyn Abbate and (eds.), Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1989), p. 27-55. In the light of what has been said here, his assertion that "the normal orchestra at the Teatro La Fenice did not include a bass clarinet" (42) and "during January, as he composed Ernani in Venice, Verdi determined that it would be possible to engage a bass clarinetist" (43) need revising. Fabrizio della Seta

For the rest, Verdi did not limit himself to using the clarino basso in the Scena Carlo, but brought it back for a few bars in the final pages of the opera to double the flute and clarinet in the Adagio that accompanies the death of the protagonist. After which, the instrument disappear form Verdi's horizons, as from those of all Italian composers of the period.40 We see it reappear only in 1865, in the revised version of for ,41 and, not long afterwards, as a matter of course in all the operas written, revised or in any way projected for , where the instrument was used for the first time in April 1866 in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine:42 in the final trio of the second La forza del destino (1869); in Aida (1872) in the Amneris-Radamès duet; in the new (1881) when Paolo curses himself in the first-act finale; in Otello (1887) for the love duet in Act I; in Falstaff (1893) for the faires' song.43 In almost all of these examples the bass clarinet is used efficiently but rather traditionally, that is, as a sound emerging from the instrumental context to give special colour to a scene of limited duration.

40 According to the libretto printed for the première, the clarino basso appears also to have been used in (17 March 1846), i.e. in a score in which Verdi did not give its own part, and therefore to the custom that we have here supposed to have been established at the Teatro La Fenice, a custom by this time on the point of dying out.

41 To be precise in the Andante of the third-act ballet, where the bass clarinet and a bassoon double the cello melody.

42 C.f. Anna Tedesco, "'Queste opere eminentemente sinfoniche e spettacolose': 's Influence on Orchestras" in the present volume, p. xxx-xxx. In a table compiled by Antonio Rostagno, showing the make-up of the orchestra at the Teatro alla Scala between 1802 and 1871 (Piperno et al., "Le orchestre italiane dei teatri d'opera" (see n. 1), p. 174), the bass clarinet appears only in the final year, the only reference in the whole of his essay. Rostagno himself has confirmed to me that as far as can be established from the documents he has consulted, the instrument was permanently added to the La Scala orchestra from the production of the new La Forza del destino onwards; he also reports that the bass clarinet was used in Antonio Bazzini's (1871). At around the same time the instrument was becoming de rigueur for the performance of non-Italian opera. In a letter of 21 June 1870 relating to a production in Brescia of Meyerbeer's Dinorah, wrote to Alcibiade Gerardi: "As soon as I received your letter I went straight to Maldura [Alessandro Maldura, an instrument maker in Milan], who is the only one in Italy licensed to make Claroni. He explained the reasons why he couldn't and wouldn't rent out the instrument in question, and added that he would make me one specially (not having any in stock) for the reduced price of 160 Lire. You should find out whether or not the instrument, already widespread among military bands, is in the possession of the regiment in Brescia at the moment; if not, I would advise you to induce the city council to buy it. Once its job in the theatre is finished it could be passed on to the city band and sing, with its melodious voice, the praises of the Municipality. Anyway, you find the best way of sorting this out, also so this blessed Clarone, which is absolutely necessary for performing Dinorah properly, can show off its voluptuous form to our respectable lady theatre-goers" –– from Claudio Sartori, Franco Faccio e venti anni di spettacoli di fiera al Teatro Grande di Brescia. Carteggi e documenti inediti (Milan, 1938), p. 8-9.

43 In his last two operas Verdi uses the term "clarone", which in the old days meant a contralto clarinet or basset horn. Contemporaneously, the bass clarinet was used in Boito's Mefistofele (the second version, premiered at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna in 1875; the score of the first version––Milano, La Scala, 1868––is no longer in existence). More precisely, according to the Ricordi full score, plate no. 115310, © 1918, in the "Scena e Romanza" of Part I, Act I, at the line "Vedi quel frate grigio", a "clarone in si bemolle" is required (p. 137 ff.), while the beginning of the "Epilogo" asks for "clarinetto bassi in si bemolle"; however, it does not seem to be a case of two different instruments. Ponchielli's Gioconda (Milano, La Scala, 1876) uses two "claroni in si bemolle sul palco" (Act II, "Marinaresca"), which along with the bassoons and cellos, double the basses of the chorus; from the tessitura it may be deduced that by "clarone" Ponchielli means bass clarinet. From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

The exception in the duet form Otello, in which it merges with the other winds to produce a complex amalgam of sound.44 But here we are moving into a different era from the one with which we are concerned.

(Translation: Cormac Newmark)

44 Verdi would go on to use the bass clarinet one last time in the Te Deum of 1896, in which his treatment of the woodwind ensemble represents his closest approach to Wagnerian concepts of sonority; see especially the passage "dolcissimo" that accompanies the words "Te gloriosus apostolorum chorus". Fabrizio della Seta

Appendix

Example 1 F.S. Mercadante, Emma di Antiochia, Act II Terzetto Emma-Ruggiero-Corrado From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet Fabrizio della Seta From the Glicibarifono to the Bass Clarinet

Example 2 G. Donizetti, Maria de Rudenz, Act II Introduzione, Lucca vocal score, plate number 1895, p. 79-80 Fabrizio della Seta Fabrizio Della Seta

Example 3 F.S. Mercadante, La solitaria delle Asturie, Act I Introduzione [Prayer]