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L’«Antigono» di Luigi Gatti (1781). Il linguaggio musicale e il contributo di Pasquale Anfossi

Online only

Author Roberto Scoccimarro
Series Studi e Saggi
Nr. 2
Size 17×24 cm, pp. XVIII+259
Year 2017
ISBN 9788870969115

Price 7,00 €

This paper on Luigi Gatti and Pasquale Anfossi’s pasticcio Antigono, on a libretto by Metastasio, derives from information in the thematic catalogue on the works of the Mantuan chapel master, edited by Alessandro Lattanzi. The information sheds light on a complex documentary situation.
In 1773 Anfossi had already set Antigono to music himself; in 1781 he again set some arias to music, as deduced from the libretto for the Milan pasticcio: ‘Musica nuova in parte del sig. maestro Pasquale Anfossi, e nella maggior parte del sig. maestro abate Luigi Gatti.’ The manuscript score of the Milan pasticcio, partly in Gatti’s hand, is housed in Paris; in it, several closed numbers reveal the presence of a second and a third hand. The libretto reports two closed numbers that are not in the score, and two other numbers in the Paris manuscript differ further from the printed text; one of them appears in the manuscript of the third act housed in Lisbon. None of the items found in the sources corresponds to Anfossi’s setting. The information, ‘Musica nuova in parte del sig. maestro Pasquale Anfossi’, makes it plausible that, for Milan, Anfossi composed new music for some of the arias, independent from his earlier work.
Additional information is derived from the many sources of single items, while a place of its own should be reserved for the instrumental introduction to the opera which could, according to Alessandro Lattanzi, be identified in a symphony housed in the Milan Conservatory library.