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572263bk Galuppi:570034bk Hasse 23/11/10 9:22 PM Page 4

Matteo Napoli Matteo Napoli, born in Salerno, Italy, is an honours graduate of Baldassare the Giordano Conservatoire (Foggia). Early in his career, he captured worldwide attention winning many competitions, including in 1986 the First Prize in the International Liszt Piano GALUPPI Competition in Lucca (Italy). Over the last twenty years 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 Keyboard Sonatas • 1 appeared with a number of orchestras, including the Orchestra da Camera di Firenze, Brasov Philharmonic, Ofunam Philharmonic Orchestra, Tirana House, Cyprus Chamber Orchestra, NSO of Malaysia, and, in New Zealand, the Manukau Symphony Matteo Napoli, Piano Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. In Auckland (2003) he gave the first modern performance of the Piano Concerto No. 6 by Ferdinand Ries, with Uwe Grodd as conductor, followed by the European première in Romania and a further performance with the NSO of Malaysia (2004). In 2009 he was invited to Nuku’alofa to play for the Royal family of Tonga. Since 2002 he has been Artistic Director of the ‘Pianosolo’ International Piano Festival in Salerno. www.matteonapoli.com

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Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785) listing of 1909, with Nos. 29 to 32 following the listing of which it follows. The Sonata in C major, Illy 57, has an Keyboard Sonatas • 1 Charles van den Borren of 1923. Illy records Nos. 36 to insistent opening motif in the first movement Allegro. 41, the sonatas of the Passatempo al Cembalo, as having This is followed by an Italianate F major Andantino, the 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 change of key not always usual in Galuppi’s sonatas, 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- where movements are often in the same key. The sonata ment of , 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 ends with a 3/8 Presto. familiar to readers of ’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, The Sonata in B flat major, Illy 32, is in two move- 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 ments, the first marked Andantino, with the melodic 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 interest, as usual, in the right hand, quickening in interest 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, as it proceeds. The second movement, marked Presto, has where the merchants were the kings?. For Browning all Venice and the latter’s definition of music, which should transposed or misplaced. something of Scarlatti about it, with its élan, and is that was left was ‘dust and ashes’. Galuppi’s first music consist of ‘vaghessa, chiarezza and buona madulazione’ The Sonata in F major, Illy 28, is in three movements, interrupted by occasional melancholy moments of brief lessons were with his father, a barber and a violinist in a (sic). He describes Galuppi as ‘a good player’ the first a gently extended Andante of the expected grace reflection. The Sonata in G major, Illy 53, is also in two neighbouring theatre. Galuppi dared to write his first and refers also to his clavichord, an instrument to which and charm, a reflection of the Italian gift for singing movements, the first a delicate Andantino, followed by opera, La fede nell’inconstanza (Faith in Inconstancy), a a number of the sonatas are well suited. In Venice in 1748 melody. The second movement, marked Allegretto, makes an ebullient Allegro assai. pastoral fable, at the age of sixteen and it was staged in Galuppi had been appointed vice maestro di cappella at a distinct contrast and is followed by an Allegro molto in The Sonata in D major, Illy 45, is catalogued by Hedda 1722 in and Vicenza. Its predictable failure led St Mark’s and in 1762 became maestro di cappella, with 6/8 of Scarlattian bravura. It is followed here by the Illy as in E major and follows the standard slow-fast-slow- him to serious study and to lessons in composition and the additional position of maestro di coro at the Ospedale Sonata in F minor, Illy 9, again in three movements, the fast pattern of the Italian sonata of the late Baroque. It is harpsichord with , first organist at St Mark’s degli Incurabili. From 1765 to 1768 he served at the court first of which is marked Andante spiritoso, its mood included as the fourth sonata of Walsh’s Op. 1 set of 1756, in Venice and some years later to reach the position of of in St Petersburg, where he was enlivened in the following Allegretto in 3/8. The sonata with the third movement Largo e majestoso marked primo maestro di cappella. Lotti, having spent a few years court composer and director of music for the Italian court ends with a Presto in 6/8. Spiritoso e staccato. The second movement has elements in Dresden, had by this time retired from the composition opera. In Venice once more he took up his former pos- The Sonata in C minor, Illy 18, starts with an of modest display, followed by the stately dotted rhythms of opera. He nevertheless held a leading position in the itions, still composing for the theatre, but increasingly Andantino with the dotted rhythm of a French Overture, of the slow movement, the whole work capped by a music of Venice, with other pupils including Benedetto providing oratorios and other sacred music for the listed by Illy as a work in four movements, the form in dashing final Giga. In a single movement, the Sonata in Marcello, Michelangelo Gasparini and perhaps Hasse. Ospedale degli Incurabili. He died in January 1785. which it appears in some manuscripts. The second move- C major, Illy 98, provides a brilliant conclusion, from Galuppi worked first in , where, in 1726, he As a keyboard-player Galuppi was much admired. His ment, which is given here as an Allegro, follows the which the spirit of Scarlatti is never far away. served as harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola, before many keyboard sonatas, however, remained largely edition by Edith Woodcock, and is included by Walsh in returning in 1728 to Venice, where his second opera, unpublished, although many of them found their way Op. 2, No. 4 as an Andante coupled with a Capriccio, Keith Anderson 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 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 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 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

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