Musical Instruments in a 1592 Inventory of the Marquis Ferdinando d'Alarçon (original) (raw)

New findings on the use of the corni da caccia in early eighteenth century Roman orchestras

Recercare xxvi/1-2 2014, pp. 109-123.

The article offers the first substantiated evidence of the use of natural horns (corni da caccia) in early eighteenth-century Roman orchestras. The first well-documented case is the performance of Giovanni Bononcini’s serenata Sacrificio a Venere, text by Paolo Rolli, which was performed in Rome to celebrate the Austrian Empress’ Elisabeth Christine’s birthday on 28 August 1714. The author succeeded in tracking down score of this serenata — which was thought to have been lost — at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. Giovanni Bononcini and, subsequently, Antonio Caldara and Benedetto Micheli introduced natural horns in their compositions as a tribute to eminent personalities connected to Austria, or as a consequence of the influence of Austrian performance practice. The article proceeds to briefly chart the course of the use of natural horns in early eighteenth-century Rome and other cities, such as Mantua, Venice, and Naples; here, the use of horns was often politically and culturally connected to Austria. Between 1714 and 1720 Vivaldi used them in compositions performed in Venice, in Mantua (inhonour of Philip of Hesse-Darmstadt, governor of Mantua on behalf of the Austrian emperor) and, perhaps, in Rome. Starting 1720, maestro di cappella Girolamo Chiti used horns in many different instrumental ensembles, in works composed for several churches in Rome. At the same time, noble Roman patrons such as princes Ruspoli, Borghese and Colonna, as well as Cardinal Ottoboni, increasingly appreciated the use of natural horns in orchestras, to the point that — by the 1730s — the use of this instrument, both in Rome and in the rest of Italy, gradually affranchised itself from its Austrian matrix and adapted to the Italian context. By mid-century, natural horns had earned a permanent place in Italian secular music, whereas, on the contrary, their use in liturgical music was forbidden for a long time, especially in Roman churches, as a consequence of a papal bull issued by Benedict xiv in 1748. L’articolo presenta le prime testimonianze documentate dell’uso dei corni nelle orchestre romane nel primo Settecento. Il primo caso documentabile si riferisce alla serenata Sacrificio a Venere di Giovanni Bononcini su testo di Paolo Rolli, eseguita a Roma il 28 agosto 1714 per il compleanno dell’imperatrice d’Austria Elisabetta Cristina. La partitura della serenata — fino a poco tempo fa ritenuta perduta — è stata rintracciata dall’autrice presso la Österreichische Nationalbibliothek di Vienna. Giovanni Bononcini e, successivamente, Antonio Caldara e Benedetto Micheli introdussero i corni nelle loro composizioni come gesto di omaggio a personaggi di alto rango legati all’Austria o per l’influenza subìta dalla prassi musicale di quel paese. Viene poi tracciato un sintetico excursus sull’uso dei corni a Roma nella prima metà del diciottesimo secolo, e in altre città, come Napoli, Mantova, Venezia. Anche a Napoli, l’uso dei corni fu spesso legato politicamente e culturalmente all’Austria. Tra il 1714 e il 1720, Vivaldi li adoperò in alcune composizioni eseguite a Venezia, Mantova (per Filippo Assia Darmstadt, governatore di Mantova per l’Austria) e, forse, a Roma. Dal 1720, il maestro di cappella Girolamo Chiti usò i corni in svariati organici strumentali nella musica composta per diverse chiese di Roma. Nello stesso periodo, nobili committenti romani come i principi Ruspoli, Borghese e Colonna, e il cardinale Ottoboni gradirono sempre di più l’impiego dei corni nelle orchestre. È soprattutto negli anni Trenta del Settecento che l’uso dei corni, a Roma e nel resto d’Italia, si emancipò progressivamente dalla sua matrice austriaca per adattarsi al contesto italiano. A metà del Settecento, i corni avevano conquistato un posto fisso nella musica profana in Italia; mentre, al contrario, nella musica sacra l’uso ne fu impedito per lungo tempo, in particolar modo nelle chiese di Roma, in conseguenza di una bolla papale emanata da Benedetto xiv nel 1748.

Lavoisier’s Collection of Instruments

GIOVANNI DI PASQUALE OSSERVAZIONI SUL FUNZIONAMENTO DI MACCHINE E MECCANISMI NEL TEATRO ANTICO ...Con la mano non mi toccherai mai. Tanto prodigioso e Á il carro che mi ha dato il Sole, padre di mio padre, a difesa di mano nemica. Euripide, Medea, vv. 1320-1322. Ð 1 Ð truviana, ha una funzione essenziale per la vita della citta Á, sia dal punto di vista architettonico che da quello sociale. Vitruvio fornisce una somma di interessanti informazioni sulla geometria della costruzione, sui problemi di acustica, su alcune caratteristiche architettoniche che resteranno peculiari del teatro latino. Lo stesso Vitruvio e Polluce, grammatico attivo all'epoca dell'imperatore Commodo (180-192 d.C.), registrano alcune notizie sui macchinari che venivano impiegati nei teatri; essi attingono, probabilmente, da una comune fonte di eta Á tardo ellenistica, cioe Á uno di quei veteres architecti che Vitruvio (V, 3, 8) evoca come autorita Á in questo settore.

Strange musical instruments in the Madrid notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci

1969

An examination of the sketches of musical instruments in Leonardo's recently discovered Madrid notebooks. A single bell capable of producing four distinct pitches, a novel double-acting bellows supplying the wind to a triple trumpet and a portable organ, and a viola organista (Geigenwerk) are described within the context of Renaissance organology and technology.

The "Cimbasso" and related instruments in 19th-century Italy

The Galpin Society Journal, 1996

'Cimbasso'. Term used in Italy since the early 19th century for various bass and double bass lip-reed aerophones. (1) A type of upright wooden serpent with a large flared bell of brass and between one and four keys. The instrument is peculiar to Italy, differing from the French basson russe in both bell shape and in the arrangement of keys. Its name may be derived from the abbreviated form of ‘corno in basso’ (‘c. in basso’); variants are encountered, such as simbasso, gimbasso, and even gibas. Produced by makers such as Magazari, Piana and Papalini, the wooden cimbasso replaced the serpent as the lowest member of the brass family in about 1816, making its first appearance at La Scala where it was noticed by Spohr. Paganini was perhaps the first composer to adopt the instrument, in his Violin Concerto no.1 in E♭ (1816); he was followed by many Italian composers, including Donizetti, Bellini and Giovani Pacini. It cannot be stated with certainty that these parts were always played on a true cimbasso; where the instrument was unavailable, the part could have been played on a keyed ophicleide, an instrument known to have been in use at this time despite its absence from contemporary Italian scores. The wooden cimbasso remained popular until at least the mid-1830s. (2) After about 1835 the term, like the term ‘ophicleide’ or ‘oficleide’, tended to be used generically to describe the lowest orchestral brass instruments, which were in a period of fast-developing innovation. The cimbasso required by Verdi in his earliest operas was probably a valved ophicleide, like those being made at the time by Apparuti and Uhlmann. In other orchestras the parts were actually played on euphonium- and tuba-like models, which Italian and Austrian makers usually called 'bombardoni'. This explains why Italian scores of the 1840s often exhibit the eccentric habit of naming a new instrument at the start of each section without making any change to the writing of the part in question (see the Appendix of the Italian version of the present paper). In 1845 Giuseppe Pelitti (1811–1865) invented the pelittone (patented in Austria in 1847), a contrabass tuba designed to supersede all existing low brass instruments in Italian orchestras; in 1851, he devised the even larger 'generale pelittone'. The fashion for ever-increasing bore size and sound was strongly opposed by Verdi in 1881 when he expressed his dissatisfaction with these huge instruments. (3) In 1881 G.C. Pelitti (1837–1905) created, at Verdi’s request, a new low brass instrument, the trombone basso Verdi. In spite of its ‘basso’ epithet, it was in fact a contrabass trombone pitched in B♭. Verdi scored for this instrument in his subsequent operas, Otello (1887) and Falstaff (1893); thereafter it was quickly adopted by almost all Italian orchestras (Prout, It. trans., 2/1901). It gradually became customary to perform all parts ever conceived for the cimbasso on the trombone basso Verdi, at least until the bass tuba was adopted in Italy during the 1920s. The dissemination of this trombone, which continued in occasional use in Italy into the late 20th century, obscured the history of the cimbasso before 1881 and affected the nature of the recent revival of the instrument: modern models are trombones frequently pitched in F rather than B♭ whereas in fact no instrument called a cimbasso was a trombone before 1881, neither was it ever pitched in F. .