Andrea DELL’ANTONIO
Syntax, form and genre in sonatas
and canzonas 1621- 1635
Premio Internazionale Latina di Studi Musicali, 1994
edizione Lucca: LIM, (Quaderni di musica/realtà, 38)
pagine 308 pp., ill..
formato 14 x 21 • brossura
(in lingua inglese)
Attraverso l’analisi delle prime composizioni in «stil moderno» l’autore percorre una traccia analitica che lo porta ad individuare, in quello che era spesso considerato un caleidoscopio di formule e stilemi improvvisativi, un preciso disegno formale e strutturale la cui indagine risulta utilissima anche per una più acuta comprensione del repertorio vocale sacro e profano del XVII secolo.
Dell'Antonio, Andrea. Syntax, form and genre in sonatas and canzonas 1621-1635.
In-8, 308 pp., mus. ex., paperback (Quaderni di Musica/Realtà, 38). International Award of Musical Studies - Latina, 1994.
In 1621, with his first collection of instrumental music, Dario Castello introduces a new genre: the sonata concertata in stil moderno. Although indebted to the turn-of the -century sonata and canzona, the castellian sonata concertata is quite different in several respects; the principal innovation is the extension of the mixed -affect stile moderno to instrumental music. Through an analysis of castello's Primo Libro and of three other collections of small-ensemble instrumental musicfrom the ensuing fifteen years - by Picchi (1652), Scarani (1630) and Frescobaldi (1635) - the author identifies a repertory of compositional devices and formal procedures that characterize the "modern style" instrumental sonata/canzona. Extensive analyses reveal imortant structural and formal elements in the sonata "in stil moderno"previously understood primarily as a disorganized sequence of contasting and Kaleidoscopic episodes. In the course of the analyses, the repertory is also examined with regard to issues of recent genre theory, and especially the concept of the "generic contract". The conclusion is thet the key distinction in this repertory is not between generic titles (that is, between "sonata" and "canzona") but between the early-baroque "stile moderno" and the instrumental styles of the late sixteenth century. The essay closes with an examination of the relationship between the philosophical and aesthetic trends of the early Baroque (particularly in the Venetian sphere) and the aesthetics of the new sonata concertata. An appendix investigates the role of the instrumental "stile moderno" in the context of the rhetoric surrounding Monteverdi's "seconda pratica"