The founder of the house, Andreas Guarnerius, whose instruments bear
dates from 1650 to 1695, was a pupil of Nicolo Amati. The greatest of
the family was Joseph, surnamed del Gesù (1683-1745), a nephew of the
venerable Andreas, and so excellent a maker that one of his violins can
scarcely be bought at the present day for less than twenty-five hundred
dollars. We may add, as a matter of interest, that Joachim, when in
London, received the present of a Guarnerius valued at more than six
thousand dollars; that Sarasate uses an instrument, granted him for life,
but belonging to the Spanish crown, worth fifteen thousand dollars; and
that a similar price was paid by Mr. Crawford Leith, of Scotland, for the
celebrated "Messiah Stradivarius." This violin is the product of another
famous Cremonese maker, the last and greatest artist of the school,
Antonio Stradivarius (1649-1737), whose instruments have equal value with
those of his fellow townsmen Nicolo Amati and Joseph Guarnerius.
The first famous Italian violin virtuoso was Arcangelo Corelli
(1653-1713). He settled permanently in Rome in 1683, and found there
a happy home in the palace of Cardinal Ottoboni, whose concerts
he conducted up to the time of his death. His violin playing was
characterized by a refinement of taste which no other performer of the
day was able to equal, and the same quality embodied in his compositions
render them still delightful, although the technique demanded for their
performance would now be regarded as infantile. Among his numerous
pupils the most eminent were Geminiani, Locatelli, Somis, Baptiste and
Castrucci.
[Illustration: ARCANGELO CORELLI.
From Naumann's History of Music.]
Of equal significance was Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1745). His fame rests
on various grounds. He was one of the greatest violinists of all times,
an eminent composer, and a scientific writer on musical physics. His
contemporaries agree in crediting him with all the qualities that make
a great player, a fine tone, unlimited command of fingerboard and bow,
perfect intonation in double stops, a brilliant trill and double-trill,
which he executed equally well with all the fingers. He was also a
remarkably good teacher, as is evidenced by the large number of excellent
pupils he sent forth and of which the most eminent are, Nardini, Bini,
Manfredi, Ferrari, Graun and Lahoussaye. Some of these have borne
enthusiastic testimony to Tartini's rare merits and powers as a teacher,
to his unremitting zeal and personal devotion to his scholars, many of
whom were linked to him by bonds of intimate friendship to the close of
his life.
The importance of the influence of Italy on the earlier forms of
composition was not less important than that which she wielded in other
branches. The sonata, as its name indicates, is of Italian origin. For a
long time the composition of sonatas was cultivated almost exclusively
by the violinists. Corelli and Tartini are its principal inventors and
representatives. Although they looked upon it mainly as an opportunity
to display their technical accomplishments, nevertheless, the musical
ability of these two violinists was so great that they constantly sought
a noble classical form for their thoughts, and gave to the composition a
harmonic construction which corresponds to the most advanced ideas of the
time.
As has already been said, the chief remarkable phenomenon in the
development of the sonata among the masters of the violin, was the
rapidity with which a firm structure in respect to harmony and the
relation of keys was produced. The delicate instinct of Corelli and
of some of those who followed him, divined and grasped the effect and
importance of the effects of certain keys in connection with others
distantly or closely related, and the extended and consistent working
out of this principle produced those very works which have made their
composers renowned far and wide.
The Italian violinist cultivated principally the "intermediate type"
which joins the earlier and later sonata style, and in which the first or
principal theme appears at the beginning of the first half and reappears
near the end, quite in accordance with the custom of our own day. As a
noteworthy example of this style, the tempo di gavotta of the eighth
sonata, in Corelli's opera seconda, may be named. Among other good
examples are the last movement in Tartini's fourth sonata (Op. 1) and the
last movement of that in D minor; also the last movement of Geminiani's
sonata in C minor, some parts of Vivaldi's sonata in A major, and some
sections also of Nardini's sonatas.
Pietro Locatelli (born in 1693 at Bergamo, died in 1764 at Amsterdam)
became, at the most tender age, a pupil of Corelli, at Rome. He travelled
and settled finally in Amsterdam. He was a very original virtuoso, and
the first who introduced extremely difficult violin passages into his
compositions. He is therefore generally called the forerunner of Paganini.
Francesco Geminiani (born in 1680 at Lucca, died in 1761 at Dublin),
a pupil of Corelli at Rome, also studied composition there with no
less a master than Scarlatti. He possessed an extraordinarily lively
temperament, which, according to the testimony of contemporary writers,
showed itself strongly in his performances. In 1714 he went to England,
where he became very popular, and was received into the house of Lord
Essex, who became his pupil.
One of the great names among Italian violinists and composers of sonatas
is that of Antonio Vivaldi. He forms, so to speak, the connecting link
between the perfection of Italian sonata and the beginning of the
cultivation of the same form in Germany.
[Illustration: GIUSEPPE TARTINI.
From Naumann's History of Music.]
A brilliant comet appeared in the musical heavens, however, that most
celebrated and most eccentric of all Italian violinists, Nicolo Paganini
(1784-1839). The extraordinary power of this artist's playing could
have had its source only in genius of the first order. If genius, as
Michael Angelo justly said, is the power of taking infinite pains,
Paganini certainly possessed it in a very high degree; for his power
of concentration and perseverance were unexampled. Mere perfection of
technique, however, would never have thrown the whole of musical Europe
into such ecstasies. With the first notes his audience was spell-bound.
There was in him--though certainly not the evil spirit suspected by
the superstitious--a demoniac element, which irresistibly took hold
of those that came under the sway of his tone. Moscheles, the great
pianist, remarks: "His constant and daring flights, his newly discovered
flageolet-tones, his gift of fusing and beautifying subjects of wholly
opposite natures--all these phases of genius so completely bewildered
my musical perceptions that for days afterwards my head was on fire and
my brain reeled." He was no mere virtuoso. There was something in his
playing that defied description or imitation; and he certainly had,
in a high degree, originality and character, the two qualities which
distinguish the man of genius from the man of talent.
A star of second magnitude as a violinist, but nevertheless noteworthy,
was J. B. Viotti (1735-1824), who wrote many classical concertos for his
instrument, but afterward gave up playing altogether. Giardini, Pugnani,
Campagnoli and many others, living in various musical countries, made
names for themselves as performers and composers.
As has already been remarked, Scarlatti was the principal representative
in the development of the form of the clavier sonata. Scarlatti, but
a few years older than J. Sebastian Bach, has the same distinguishing
marks as his great contemporary. He holds himself firmly to a clearly
determined form, conditioned by musical laws. The principal difference
between the two composers is that Scarlatti was inclined to make the
brilliant technique which he possessed as virtuoso the real object of
the composition, while in the case of Bach, even in things of lesser
dimensions, introspection and artistic intensity manifested themselves.
Nevertheless, the flowing and dazzling manner of writing which Scarlatti
possessed and which was the result of his Italian temperament, must
have often served Sebastian Bach as a model. Scarlatti's form inclines
more toward that of the etude than of the true sonata. It was through
Baldassare Galuppi (1706-1785), a pupil of Lotti and a very talented
composer, that the piano sonata received characteristic expression.
In his works after the manner of Corelli and Tartini, the display and
passage work appeared only as a subordinate element. In comparing
Galuppi's celebrated sonata in D major with similar works of Scarlatti,
we perceive the great difference between the two masters.
The sonata's greatest companion-piece, the symphony, also came into
existence through the efforts of Italian musicians. The word sinfonia
first appears with a very uncertain meaning. In general, it was used
to mark the distinction between vocal and instrumental movements in
cantatas, in sacred music, and, later, in opera. At the beginning of
the seventeenth century we find the word used for the first time in
large vocal works, and applied to interludes, ritornelle and preludes.
This became the general custom when opera was introduced, and the short
instrumental prelude was always entitled symphony. This last species of
composition is, indeed, to be considered as the origin of our classical
symphonic form. Not all the early operas had instrumental introductions,
although Jacopo Peri himself made use of them. In his "Eurydice" there
is a symphony for three flutes! Monteverde considerably enlarged the
form, but seemed to find in it no characteristic expression of his
ideas. At that time the form consisted of three parts, a slow movement,
a quicker movement, and again a slow movement. This form of the symphony
had really no artistic connection with the opera which followed, but
was only a musical piece to inform the hearers that the performance was
about to begin. Later, however, came works with more marked and pertinent
character, which bore the names, overture and toccata. Finally, through
the introduction of ballet-melodies, the symphony became of a livelier
nature. At the same time, the word symphony gained more significance,
and, as its inner construction kept pace with the modest beginning of the
sonata form, it became visibly more artistic, more musical and of a more
clearly-defined form. We early come in contact, however, with a different
kind of sinfonia, invented by an Italian who had become identified with
the French school. This form corresponds more nearly to the overture of
the present day. Jean Baptiste Lully first used this form. It consisted
of a slow, dignified movement, followed by one of light, French style,
and closing with a slow movement, which, however, was of less serious
character than the first.
The next manifestation of the overture form resembled still more closely
our symphony of to-day, in that it began and ended with quick movements.
The middle movement was an andante. It is difficult to decide which
of the Italian composers first used this form. The details of the
development of the separate movements were, in comparison with earlier
works of similar character, more careful and more strict. Evidences of
the purely musical interest in the perfection of form thus manifested
themselves, and the artistic arrangement of ideas made the work much
more comprehensible to the public. From its earliest day, this species
of composition has borne a clearly defined resemblance to our modern
orchestral works, and, under the formative influence of the multitude of
composers who used it, the sinfonia italiana made rapid progress towards
perfection. By the beginning of the eighteenth century there was that
unanimity of ideas among composers which indicates that a musical form
exists as an independent thing. We find perhaps the best specimens of
these "symphonies" in the overtures to "Catone in Utica" by Lionardo
da Vinci and to "Il Mondo alla Riversa" by Galuppi, the latter of which
was given one year before Joseph Haydn wrote his first symphony. Another
excellent specimen is the overture to the "Bidone" of Piccinni; and,
indeed, we find the form in use by Mozart in his first attempt at opera,
"La Finta Semplice."
Contemporaneously with the sinfonia there were cultivated, especially in
Germany by Bach and Handel, two other art forms of orchestral character:
the suite and the concerto grosso. The former was a succession of loosely
connected dance movements, such as allemande, courante, gavotte, bourree,
passacaglia, passepied, sarabande, etc. The concerto grosso was a species
of enlarged sonata for orchestra, which, by means of incidental solos
for separate instruments, afforded the various players opportunity to
give evidence of their abilities as soloists. Handel wrote many such
concertos. These two forms, combined with the technical and musical
development of the sinfonia italiana, congealed finally into the form of
our classic symphony. The honor of having first given the stamp to this
form falls to Sammartini, a Milanese conductor. His symphonies had three
separate movements: allegro, andante, allegro. Haydn took Sammartini
as a model in everything. He perfected the symphony by bringing the
instrumental development to really artistic significance, and by
adding another movement, the minuet. Contemporaries of Haydn, Stamitz,
Wagenseil, Emanuel Bach, had also attempted the composition of symphonies
after the model of Sammartini; but none of them reached the degree of
excellence attained by Haydn, although their works, in certain technical
respects, were not without influence on Haydn's style.
With the exception of Boccherini and Cherubini, scarcely a single
prominent Italian composer gave any attention to the composition of
symphonies. This might naturally be expected in view of the enormous
popularity of operatic and vocal music. It was not until the later
decades of the nineteenth century that certain more or less successful
attempts were made by Italians in this field of composition. The two
composers who have gained greatest honor in this connection have been the
Roman Sgambati, a pupil of Liszt, and the excellent Neapolitan musician,
Martucci, at present director of the conservatory in Bologna. Both these
artists have composed symphonic works of a high order of merit. It is
hardly to be expected, however, that the Italians will ever make lasting
contributions to a species of composition so wholly foreign to the
natural tendencies of their national character.
But let us resume the record of things operatic in Italy. It will be
remembered that we traced the growth of the opera from its beginning
under the hand of Peri, through its development by Scarlatti, Legrenzi,
Logroscino, Jomelli, Pergolesi, Salieri and Piccinni, its ennoblement by
Gluck, on to its perfection as a purely Italian production, through the
genius of Cimarosa. The last-named composer invested his works with a
charm which has never been surpassed, and glorified its outward form with
a symmetrical grace which raises his compositions more nearly than those
of any other composer to the height of Mozart.
We have now to mention another great Italian master of the age, who,
though belonging chronologically to a group which we will discuss later,
may properly be mentioned here, as he forms the last link of the chain
of composers of the Neapolitan school. We refer to Luigi Carlo Z. S.
Cherubini. As he, however, passed so many of his active years in France,
it is impossible to think of him apart from the country of his adoption.
A special article concerning this great master by Dr. Philipp Spitta,
will be found on page ninety-three of this work.
Among the other Italian composers of the same period who devoted
themselves to the cultivation of French grand opera, and opera comique,
are the following: A. M. G. Sacchini (1734-1786) settled in Paris about
1784. Under the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette, he brought out two
of his Italian operas, "Rinaldi" and "Il gran Cid."
Ferdinando Paër (1771-1839) lived in Italy, Dresden, Vienna and Paris. In
the last-named city he succeeded Spontini as the director of the Opera
Italien. His most popular work was "Agnese."
Michele Caraffa (1785-1864) studied at Paris under Cherubini. His best
operas are "Masaniello," not to be confounded with Auber's popular opera
of the same name, and "La prison d'Edimbourg."
Gasparo Luigi Pacifico Spontini (1774-1851), after having written some
unimportant operas in Italy, settled at Paris in 1803. In 1807 his
masterpiece, "La Vestale," with which he won the great state-prize of
10,000 francs, was produced at the Academie Nationale with brilliant and
well-merited success. His next opera, "Fernando Cortez" (1809), was
received with still greater enthusiasm. Bitterly disappointed by the
failure of his third opera, "Olympia" (1819), he accepted a permanent
engagement offered by King Frederic William III. of Prussia. At Berlin
his operas in a revised form were given at the Royal Opera with great
success, and "Olympia" thus had its artistic rehabilitation. Some
weeks later--the 18th of June, 1821--the first performance of Weber's
"Freischütz" took place at the same theatre, and its unheard-of success
was gall and bitterness to Spontini, whose jealous temper could brook
the presence of no possible rival. Accordingly he tried, by every means
that lay within his power, to crush the gifted composer, whom he chose
to regard as his personal enemy; but of course the "Freischütz" and
its author were unassailable. Spontini afterwards wrote "Nurmahal,"
"Alcidor," and, in 1827, "Agnes von Hohenstaufen." The performance of the
latter began a long series of personal attacks in which Spontini defended
himself ably, but which made his life in Berlin unpleasant. His second
term of ten years ended about the time of the king's death, in 1840, and
two years later he returned to Paris. He died in 1851, at his birthplace,
Majolati, in Italy, to whose poor, with that of Jesi, he left his money.
Several lesser lights of the same epoch are worthy of mention. Valentino
Fioravanti (1770-1837), who wrote "Le cantatrice villane," a delightful
opera buffa. This work was held for a long time in high esteem. Giovanni
Piccinni (1796-1867) wrote a large number of operas, among which the
best known are "Tasso" and "Nicolo de' Lapi." Saverio Mercadante
(1797-1870) was one of the best and most learned composers of the Italian
school, whom at the beginning of his musical career they used to call
"Il Beethoven italiano." His first work, a cantata for the Teatro del
Fondo (1818), was followed by another, "L'Apoteosi d'Ercole," produced
at San Carlo (1819) with extraordinary success. In the same year he
produced his first opera buffa, "Violenza e costanza," and after this
came several serious operas, of which "Elisa e Claudio" (Milan, 1822)
was the most successful. From this period Mercadante steadily maintained
his reputation as an operatic writer, and the verdict of Italy in his
favor was endorsed by Vienna in 1824. He passed the years 1827 and 1828
in Madrid, 1829 in Cadiz, and in 1831 returned to Naples. In 1833 he
became Generali's successor as chapel-master at the cathedral of Novara.
In 1836 he composed and superintended the production of "I Briganti" in
Paris. But the two operas with which he made a decided hit were: "Il
Giuramento" (Milan, 1837) and "Il Bravo" (Naples, 1838); both had long
and successful runs in the most important theatres. In the opera buffa,
"I due illustri rivali," he changed his style, working the accents
strongly with the brass instruments. In this respect he set an example
which unfortunately has been widely followed, for the continued and
injudicious use of the brass instruments in the orchestra led a great
many of Italian operatic composers to ruin. In 1840 he became director
of the conservatory at Naples, a position which he held up to his death
(1870). Though he lost an eye when at Novara, he continued to compose by
dictation; but he became totally blind in 1862. His influence with regard
to sensible musical development, especially in the dramatic scenes and
recitatives of opera, has been undoubtedly a great one, and we owe it to
him alone, if since his appearance Italian composers no longer adhere to
poor accompaniments and insignificant musical phrasing.
Of Luigi Ricci (1805-1859) and his brother Federigo (1809-1877) it is
scarcely necessary to speak, although their opera "Crispino e la Comare"
has been given in all the principal theatres of Europe and America.
The brilliant period of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini is linked with
the present by the life-work of one who was their contemporary, and is
also still with us, Verdi, the Nestor of all living Italian musicians.
Born in 1814, the author of "Ernani," "Il Trovatore," "La Traviata,"
"Rigoletto," "Un ballo in maschera," "Aïda," "Otello" and "Falstaff" may
be regarded as the most successful and most talented of Italian composers
of the present time. The variety of styles in which he has written operas
shows the breadth of his genius, and his Requiem Mass, written in memory
of the great Italian poet, Alessandro Manzoni, is a sacred work of great
dramatic power. Full details concerning his life and work will be found
in the special article devoted to him.
Quite a number of second rate composers, whose names, however, have to be
mentioned for the sake of completeness, appear now on the horizon. Some
of these were able to please their contemporaries for a considerable
length of time. First of all, and to be thought of in intimate connection
with Mercadante, is Lauro Rossi. He was director of the conservatory at
Milan, and afterwards at Naples, and retired finally to his native place
Macerata. He wrote many opere buffe, among which, "Il Domino Nero" and
"La Figlia di Figaro" were very popular. His last work, of more ambitious
character, was "La Contessa di Mons" (libretto after Sardou), which met
with an uncertain success.
Besides him, Enrico Petrella and Antonio Cagnoni are to be placed. The
former, a genuine Neapolitan in the truest sense of the word, a musical
"lazzarone" without much refinement, but full of the "frase italiana,"
wrote a large number of operas, some of them winning the greatest
popularity. Cagnoni is on a higher level as a composer, but cannot be
numbered among the stars of first magnitude. He wrote most of his operas
for a great and popular Italian artist, the famous basso-cantante,
Alessandro Bottero. This singer's ability was quite unique, and it is
very probable that now when he is no more, Cagnoni's operas also will
soon be forgotten. Chief among his works are "Papa Martin," "Michele
Perrin," "Don Bucefalo," all of which enjoyed immense popularity. He also
composed "Claudia," "Francesco da Rimini." Some of his operas are in the
true buffo style, while the others are in the semi-serio.
Of the younger school of Italian operatic composers, we have to mention
three names particularly: Arrigo Boito, Amilcare Ponchielli and Carlos
Gomez. The last named is a Brazilian by birth, but he studied at the
conservatory at Milan, and his operas have been brought out at Italian
theatres. We may therefore include his name among Italian composers.
As there is a special article in this work dealing with Arrigo Boito,
we need only mention the great influence his appearance has had upon
the development of modern Italian opera. He has produced only one work,
"Mefistofele." His methods in dramatic music are striking and convincing.
In spite of his earnestness of purpose, his work does not lack in
popularity and power, and one is scarcely surprised at the fact of its
immense success wherever it has been performed.