Marianna Martines and the Overture in C Major

iii Preface Marianna Martines ( 1744-1812) Marianna Martines, born May 4, 1744 in Vienna, was a composer, harpsichordist and pianist, singer, and teacher. Although christened Anna Katharina, she was called Marianna. She was the daughter of Nicolo and Marla Theresia de Martines, who were of Spanish descent. Many biographical sources spell her last name with "ez" and use the German "von" (equivalent of "de"); however, her letters and autograph scores use the "es" spelling and omit the "von" or "de" designation. Her early education was supervised by Pietro Metastasio, court poet to Kaiser Karl VI and a librettist known for his contributions to Italian opera, who lived with the Martines family until his death in 1782. It was through Metastasio's connections that Martines received the best musical instruction: voice with Nicola Porpora, influential teacher of Italian operatic style; keyboard and composition with twenty-two year old Franz Joseph Haydn, who lived in an attic apartment in the same building as Martines; counterpoint with Giuseppe Bonno; and additional composition lessons with Johann Hasse. Martines was elected to the Accademia Filarmonica of Bologna in 177 3 and later founded a very successful singing school. She held weekly musical parties in her home, which attracted the most notable artists in Vienna. At some of these parties, she and Wolfgang Mozart performed works for four-hand piano. Martines died of tuberculosis on December 13, 1812. Sinfonia in C Major Sinfonia in C Major was composed in 1770 when Martines was 24. An autographed score exists in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. In addition to the score, there are individual string parts in a different hand, perhaps a copyist. On the score, Martines labeled the work Ouverture, while a frontispiece, added in a different hand, calls the work Sinfonie. Perhaps this composition was detached from the main body of a larger work to which it served as an instrumental introduction. It is also possible, however, that the work did not originally precede any other work, since works of this type, in both the ouverture and the sinfonia genres, were written during the first half of the 18th century. These genres, which began with only a few examples, increased greatly after the middle of the century. The terms became virtually synonymous and publishers began issuing what they called periodical ouvertures , works designated as ouvertures on the outside cover and sinfonie on the first page of music. iv While the purpose of Martines's Sinfonia is enigmatic, it is consistent with a general category of works for orchestra being written by numerous composers between 17 50 and 1770. In these works, the role of conductor was entrusted to a player who sat at the harpsichord and realized the basso-continuo harmony not completed in the string parts. Toward the 1 770s, as the symphony increased in scope and the orchestra in size, trumpets and timpani were employed at cadence points in certain loud or fast movements, but were not always specified in t;he score. Parts for these instruments were considered ad libitum and could be omitted without much loss, except of color and volume. The absence of these parts, therefore, is by no means indicative that these instruments were not utilized in a performance of Martines's Sinfonla. Sinfonia in C Major is representative of the style of Haydn's early works. Light and rhythmical, it is harmonically simple and its structure is quite typical of early classicism. The work conforms to the prevailing usage of the three-movement (fast, slow, fast) Italian sinfonia. The first and third movements are written in the emerging sonata-allegro form, commonly referred to as semi-sonata form, because of the use of tutti sections to establish new tonalities within the formal structure. These tutti sections were eventually absorbed into the transition material of the form. The slower second movement approaches the more traditional sonata-allegro format. The sprightly third movement is a dance-like finale in 3/8 meter. Because of the meter and jaunty nature of the thematic material, the movement resembles a mini overture to an opera buffa. Indeed, one fully expects the curtain to rise after the last chord! .

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