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Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

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GRECO Rocco Bass Violin Music for MVSICA PERDVTA · Renato Criscuolo bass violin
Transcript
Page 1: Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

GRECORocco

Bass ViolinMusic for

MVSICA PERDVTA · Renato Criscuolo bass violin

Page 2: Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

Rocco Greco c.1650-before 1718Music for Bass Violin

Sinfonia prima 1. Largo assai 1’542. Allegro 1’273. Allegro 1’29

Sinfonia decimasesta 4. Largo-Presto-Piano 2’135. Corrente 2’08

Sinfonia seconda 6. Grave 0’577. Allegro 2’408. Corrente 1’39

9. (no title) for violin and B.c. 1’05

Sinfonia decimaquarta 10. Grave 1’3711. Allegro 2’06

12. Loquebantur 3’23

25. Domus Mea 5’46

Sinfonia viggesimaprima 26. (no tempo indication) 1’3527. (no tempo indication) 0’55

Sinfonia quinta 28. (la prima viola suona li numeri) 1’1129. Allegro 1’52

30. (no title) for violin and B.c. 1’24

Sinfonia decimanona 13. (no tempo indication) 2’0514. (no tempo indication) 2’37

15. (no title) for violin and B.c. 1’13

Sinfonia viggesimasesta 16. (no tempo indication) 1’5217. (no tempo indication) 1’08

Sinfonia terza 18. Grave 1’1719. Allegro 2’4720. Corrente 1’18

21. (no title) for violin and B.c. 1’07

Sinfonia quarta 22. Allegro-Largo-Allegro 1’4323. Balletto 1’5424. Corrente 2’27

Sinfonia viggesima 31. (no tempo indication) 1’5532. (no tempo indication) 1’26

Sinfonia viggesimaottava 33. (no tempo indication) 1’2334. (no tempo indication) 1’07

Appendice: sinfonia terza transcriptio for violin and bass35. Grave 1’1136. Allegro 2’2137. Corrente 1’21

MVSICA PERDVTARenato Criscuolo bass violin

Vincenzo Bianco violin

Andrea Lattarulo bass violinAndrea Benucci theorbo and Baroque guitar

Alberto Bagnai harpsichord and positiv organ

David Maria Gentile and Federico Marcucci Gregorian chant

Recording: October & November 2019, l’Oratorio dei padri Barnabiti, Rome, ItalySound Engineer: Baltazar ZúñigaEditing: Renato Criscuolo & Baltazar ZúñigaMastering: Baltazar ZúñigaCover: Musicians (1623), by Dirck Hals (1591-1656)p & © 2021 Brilliant Classics

Page 3: Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

the underhand grip) because of the great number of violinists who adopted the new instrument but did not want to change their right-hand technique. With respect to the cello, the sound is grainier and sometimes slightly guttural. In post-production we have deliberately avoided attenuating this feature, precisely because it is typical of the instrument.

Rocco Greco did not move over to the cello until after 1714, when according to the records of the Cappella Vicereale he was still playing the viola (I am grateful to Vincenzo Bianco for pointing this out to me). This confirms what Michel Corrette declared in his Methode théorique et pratique pour apprendre en peu de temp le violoncelle dans sa perfection of 1741:

“Depuis environ vingtcinq ou trente ans, on à quitté la grosse basse de violon montée en Sol pour le Violoncelle des Italiens, inventé par Bononcini, présentement Maitre de Chappelle du Roi de Portugal, son accord est d’un ton plus haut que l’ancienne Basse ce qui lui donne beaucoup de jeu.”

Rocco can be considered the founder of the great Neapolitan cello tradition that was to develop with virtuosi such as Francesco Alborea, known as Francisciello, who was probably the inventor of the capotasto technique, Francesco Paolo Supriani (or Scipriani, as he was also known), Salvatore Lanzetti and Andrea Caporale. His use of highly advanced technique comes to the fore in the Sinfonias 2 and 3, which differ from the others on account of the technical sophistication of the first viola part, also evident in the diminutions on the Gregorian antiphons that herald aspects of the cello technique of Supriani and Francisciello. In the San Pietro a Majella Conservatoire library there are other compositions by him for bass instrument, perhaps intended for teaching, as well as various other parts.

The twenty-eight Sinfonie à due viole are the earliest compositions of the important Montecassino manuscript score collection. They belong to the bicinium instrumental tradition with a double system in the bass key and very infrequent use of the tenor key. Here and there in the second stave there are numerical indications, which suggests that the two viole were probably accompanied by a harmonic instrument. At

The Neapolitan composer Rocco Greco (mid 1600s – 1718), brother of the better-known Gaetano, was an instrumentalist at the Cappella Vicereale whose extant compositions include 28 sinfonie à due viole and eleven pieces of instrumental music that were probably the incipit of a Gregorian antiphon or some other sacred text. They are preserved in a single volume of manuscript scores that includes music by Gaetano Francone and Bononcini. The cover features an unidentified crest pertaining to the prelature and the collection is dated 1699. In all likelihood it belonged to an amateur bass violin or cello player, since in southern Italy in the late 17th century the world viola was used to refer to what was known as the basse de violon in France, the bass Geige in Germany and bass violin in England. In Italy, on the other hand, various terms were used for the instrument, including violone (ex multis Giovanni Battista Vitali and Giovanni Lorenzo Lulier), basso (Giuseppe Colombi), basso violino (Girolamo Frescobaldi in the Venice edition of his instrumental songs) and basso di viola da brazzo (Claudio Monteverdi in L’Orfeo). Other composers working in Naples during the same period, such as Cristofaro Caresana (1640-1709), also used the word viola to refer to the bass instrument of the violin family. By contrast, it is highly unlikely that Rocco Greco adopted the term viola to indicate the viola da gamba, since this instrument had virtually disappeared from southern Italy 50 years earlier. It is thus mistaken to claim, as recent scholars have, that the viola da gamba was still in use in the Kingdom of Naples at the turn of the 17th to 18th century.

The very limited presence of of B and B natural in the compositions indicates that the instrument intended for these works was generally strung and tuned like the bass violin, G-C-F-B , one tone below the cello. The instrument intended by Rocco Greco would probably not have been fitted with frets and, as we know from contemporary illustrations, and the bow would almost always have been held in the underhand grip, as with the viola da gamba today. Further proof of this is also to be found in the Essai sur le doigté du violoncelle et sur la conduite de l’archet by one of the great virtuoso cellists of the time, Jean Louis Duport, who states that the overhand grip was adopted for the cello (which initially, like all “da gamba” instruments, envisaged

Page 4: Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

that differentiated his part from that of the continuo. While on the one hand there is something somewhat predictable about the simplicity of the melodic bass, on the other hand these compositions also reveal the use of techniques that are at least as sophisticated as those of sinfonias 2 and 3, if not more so, which is precisely why I decided to include them in the recording. Clearly Greco was not hugely skilled in his diminutions, yet he was certainly a great virtuoso player who heralded the work of a generation of magnificent cellists.

Thanks to the generosity of my friend Vincenzo Bianco, a tireless scholar and virtuoso violinist who has also taken part in performing these works, we were able to add a number of compositions with double notation systems, one in the treble clef and the other in the bass clef. We do not know if Greco envisaged them for keyboard use or as music for violin (or another treble instrument) and basso continuo. We have adopted the second solution, which works very well musically, investing the pieces with a liveliness and sense of melody that performance on a keyboard would not have provided. Copies of these scores are to be found in Vincenzo Bianco’s personal archive, and one of the pieces also features in a book of parts kept in the San Pietro a Majalla Conservatoire library in Naples. Apart from these items, we have also added what is probably an early 19th century transcription for violin and basso continuo of the sinfonia 3. Unearthed by Bianco in his meticulous research, it speaks for the fame that long surrounded Rocco’s music, like that of his brother Gaetano. The virtuoso handling of the composition makes it better suited to the treble violin rather than the bass, bringing out the luminous brilliance typical of the Neapolitan school at the turn of the 17th century.

To perform these works my colleague Andrea Lattarulo and I have used meticulous modern copies by Marco Salerno and Roberto Caravella of two bass violins of similar size, since it is now very hard to come by original bass violins that were not shortened during the 18th century. Neither instrument has frets, and both have a 74 cm long vibrant string and are tuned to G-C-F- B . The diapason is A = 415, which was common in the Kingdom of Naples towards the end of the 1600s, whereas

all events, Caresana had already adopted the same system to great effect in Naples. The term sinfonia was commonly used in Naples in this and later periods to refer to what would have been described as a sonata elsewhere in Italy: in other words, a chamber composition for one or two solo instruments and bass continuo. Pergolesi and Porpora both adopted the term to refer to similar compositions.

The first four sinfonias consist of three movements, while the others are made up of just two. There are evident echoes of Corelli in the earlier compositions, as well as features reminiscent of the foremost composers working in Naples at the time (Caresana, A. Scarlatti, Veneziano). The central allegro movements of sinfonias 2 and 3 feature some highly sophisticated technique that comes across as almost virtuosic, given the size of the instrument. It is offset by the second part playing as continuo. Greco does not pursue the same course in the other sinfonias, turning instead to a quieter idiom that amateur musicians would have found more congenial. The first movement of sinfonias 5 and 6 comprises a single stave with the second viola part, beneath each note of which are numbers corresponding to the notes to be played by the first instrument, in accordance with the instruction: la prima viola suona li numeri. The slow movements are largely melodious, occasionally interrupted by sections in improvisational style, while the allegro movements are often in dance form, usually with a generic indication of corrente to denote any dance in triple time. Only rarely do they take the form of a fugue. Often the two instruments proceed in parallel thirds or sixths, though sometimes they alternate in playing the melody and the accompaniment. In the two more virtuosic sinfonias, the first viola effectively becomes a solo instrument, while the second acts like a basso continuo, to the extent that it can be replaced by a harpsichord, which is what we have chosen to do.

The diminution situation is different, since Rocco is likely to have diminished the bass part of his own sacred compositions, or those of other musicians that we can no longer identify. But then the bass violin was very widespread in church music, where it served as a backing for the continuo line in addition to the organ. It thus provided the virtuoso player with an opportunity for showing off his skill by adopting diminutions

Page 5: Rocco GRECO Music Bass Violin

the tuning is semitone on the fourth. Played with the underhand grip, the bows are both built without screws, with the hairs fixed to both ends of the stick, to provide greater resonance. For the continuo part in the sonfonias, the two basses play alone in some of them, largely unnumbered, whereas in others we have added a light accompaniment with the theorbo or baroque guitar. In sinfonias 2 and 3, where the second part is little more than a basso continuo, I have replaced the second viola with a harpsichord, as in the pieces in which the violin plays the main role. In the diminutions on the Gregorian antiphons, on the other hand, the solo bass is accompanied by the positive organ.© Renato CriscuoloTranslation by Kate Singleton

Artist photos: © Mvsica Perdvta

Vincenzo Bianco

Renato Criscuolo

Andrea Benucci Federico Marcucci

Alberto Bagnai

Andrea LattaruloDavid M.

Gentile

This album is dedicated to H.R.H. Maria Carolina di Borbone, Duchess of Calabria and Palermo.

This album is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary through the intercession of Saint Roch of Montpellier


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