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The Chamber Duets of Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), with Transcriptions and Catalogue

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The Chamber Duets of Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), with Transcriptions and Catalogue This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Chamber Duets of Agostino Steffani (1654-1728), with Transcriptions and Catalogue. Timms, C. R The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 THE (EER DUETS CF .A(.OSTINO brANI (i6. - 1728), WITH TRN&'rIS CA1'.ALOGUE by Cohn Ronald Ti nins Dia8ertation subxd.tted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Music University of London King' a College 1976 2 ABSTRACZ The "& p.rpos. of this dissertation ii to coriaier the duets of Steffani as sxnp1e. of the secular Italian cantata in the late seventeenth and e arl.y eighteenth centuries • It was impossible to attempt this, however, without first establishing which duets are aithentic. This involved detth.led study of the sources, and these led inevitably to consideration of the airoumatanoes in which the duets were composed, revised and copied. The opening chapters place the duets in the oontext of Steffani' a life as a whole and indicate that he began to revise them in 1702. Leoriptiona to poets, which are investigated in chapter three, provide some evidence for the authenticity of a group of duets (the group) which i. not to be found in the ajn source, B.L BM 23 k 13-20. These manuscripts wars written by the st important copyist of Staff ani's music, who was not Gregorio Piva (chapter four), and they a2nat certainly represent the nw collection of duets on which Steffani embarked in 1702 (chapter five). Of the five volumes now missing, four mq be deduced from other early sources, and. the fifth from later manuscripts (chapter six: the Che volele group). The original versions of duets that were revised do not appear in the maii sources, but in other manuscript a discussed in chapter seven. The musical discussion begins with a bao]cground chapter concentrating on Staff ani' a nusioal education and development, and. on the Italian cantata and. duet in general • The following chapters, on the texts, style, forms and revisions of his duets, show that these works reflect the influence of the madrigal as well as of the cantata; that they incorporate French stylistic trait.; and that in some respects they resemble the contemporary trio sonata. The revisions represent a changed attitude to the form of the duet: compared with the original versions, they comprise a smaller number of longer novements, of which a higher proportion are duets (not solos) and are not repeated. In a brief Postscript, consideration is given to some duet. of doubtful authenticity. 3 AcOIEDGNTS I should like to take this opportunity of thanking all those individuals arid institutions without whose assistance the preparation of this di8sertation would have been an impossible task. My first debt is to the late Professor Thurston Dart, without whom the dissertation would never have begun, let alone completed. Professor Dart encouraged interest in Steffani and supervised n research for two arid a half years, and I am naturally sorry that he did not see the final result. His place was taken by Dr., now Professor, Brian Trowell. The 'form and content' of the dissertation, arid especially of the susical discussion, have benefitted enormously from Professor Trowell' s wise suggestions and criticism, and I am extremely grateful for his support and encouragement during the nocess of writing. I am also grateful to Dr. Pierluigi Petrobelli for his conatruc-. tive interest in the work. Although I am particularly indebted to the staff of the Music Room at the British Museum, where the most important sources of Steffani's msic are to be found, I am also grateful to librarians and archivists in Europe end the United States of America for allowing me to consult manuscripts in their possession arid for supplying microfilms. The fume were purchased, and. a visit to Belgium was financed out of a grant from the University of kndon Central Research Fund; an Italian Government scholarship, adniiriistered by the British Council, enabled me to study a large collection of Steffeni's papers in Rome aid to examine manuscripts of his nnaic there end elsewhere in Italy. For these awards, also, I should like to record a appreciation here. 4. NTNTS page £breviations ani Note 6 RT'I TifE PEOPT Chapter 1 The Life of Aostino Steffax Intro&ict ion 8 Biograp1y 12 2 Patrone of the Cimmber Duets 29 Violanta Beatrice 30 Sophie Charlotte 32 '5 The Che volete Group 4.8 Abb ate Ortenaio Mauro 52 PART II THE SOURCES 4. COpylats Gregorio Piva, Staff ani's Paeudoz]ym 59 Scribe A 64. 5 Main Souroe a london, British Museum, 1L 23 Ic 13-20 68 Munich, Bayeriaohe Staatabibliothek, MS 5.321 77 london, British Museum, RM 23 Ic 7-8 78 The Bepertox of the Manuscripts 81 Florence, Conaervatorio, IIISS D. 331-2 89 6 Derivative Source a Large Collections 93 The Che volete Group 105 7 Sources of the_Original Versions Sources of Unica 113 Other Sources 119 5 PA III THE MUSIC 8 The Musical Background Introduction 126 Steffani'. Musical Education 13 The Italian Chamber Duet 157 9 The Texts of Steffani's Duets 175 Concordances 178 Subject-matter and Style 190 Form 197 10 Aspects of Style nd Texttu'e 211 Concordance a 215 Teno and Metre 218 Key and Harmony 229 The Role of the Continu.o 239 Thematic Material 2245 Scoring and Counterpoint 235 11 Aspects of Form Internal Form 278 External Pore 289 12 The Revisions 301 External Revisions 302 Internal Revisions 309 Concluston 318 Pbstscript: Duets of Doubtful Authenticity Unreliable Ascript ions 321 Anonynus Duets 338 A Music by Steffani published before 1800 B Italian Secular Vocal Duets published 2. 1600-1753 C Padre Martini on Steffani' a Duets 357 D Catalogue of the Chamber Duets of Agoatino Steffani 366 Bibliograp1y 24.93 Subsidiary Material inside back cover P Transcriptions Volun Two 6 .BBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are used througliout the dissertation: DTB Denkm1er der Tonkunat in Bayern MCG Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart SflG Sanmelbnde der Internationalen Musikgesellechaft WECIS Wellea].ey Edition Cantata Index Series ZIMC Zeitscbrift der Internationalen Musikgeaeflachaft NOTE Much of this dissertation had already been typed when the British Museum was renaned the British Library. For this xe ason, the institution is referred to throughout this dissertation as the British Museum. PART I THE PEOPLE 8 1 T9E LIFE OF AGO STINO STEFFkNI Introduction Steffani was one of the most remarkable men of his time. Besides being an outstanding composer he was also a istinguished churchman and. diplomat. Several of his contemporaries equalled him in versatility, but few achieved such eminence in their fields. Born near Venice in 1651+, he spent most of his life in Germany: Munich (1667-88), Hanover (1688-1703 and 1709-28) and DUsseldorf (1703-9). He was Director of Chamber Music at Munich and. Kapellmeister at Hanover (until c. 1696), and. he also undertook diplomatic missions for both courts. At Düsseldorf he was appointed General President of the Palatine Government. The last third of his life was devoted to the church: he was made Bishop of Spiga in 1706 and. Apostolic Vicar in northern Germany in 1709, a position he held until his death at Frankfurt am 'ain in 1728. There is no thorough biography of Steffani in English; the fullest account' is based entirely on secono.ary sources. This is not for want of material. The archives of the Sacred. Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (de Propaganda Fide), Ro e, include eighty-six volumes of letters and. other ciocuments that Steffani had with him when he died. This coll- ection, known as the Fondo Spig , was described by Einstein in 1909,2 'Baxter, Agostino Steffani: a Study of the an and his Vork (unpublis ed. Ph.D. dissertation, Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York, 1957). Ther den Nac lass Agostino Steffani' s I Fropagand.a-Archiv zu Rom', zi c-, x (1909), pp. 172-4. 9 extracts from some of the letters have since been published. 3 The papers left in Hanover at the time of Steffani's death are now in the Niedersch- sisches Staatsarchiv at Hanover, and they were combed by Father Franz Woker towards the end. of the last century. Both collections relate mainly to Steffani's diplomatic and ecclesiastical duties. His musical activities are less well documented. The best evidence, of course, is provided by the scores and.
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