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The Italian ‘Trio’ Sonata
From its Origins
Until Corelli
PETER ALLSOP
CLARENDON PRESS • OXFORD
1992
Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6dp
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© Peter Allsop tgg2
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
(Data available)
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Allsop, Peter. Dr.
The Italian ‘trio' sonata: from its origins until Corelli/Peter
Allsop.
—(Oxford monographs on music)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Trio sonata. 2. Music—Italy—17th century—History and
criticism. I. Title. II. Series.
ML1156. A4418 igg2
785' .13183'0945—dc20
ISBN o-ig-8i622g-4
Typeset by Pentacor plc, High Wycombe, Bucks
Printed in Great Britain by
St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
a Claudio Sartori
senza la cui Bibliografia
questo libro non sarebbe stato possibile
PREFACE
This book is the outcome of almost twenty years of research into Italian
instrumental music of the seventeenth century, beginning, like so many similar
undertakings, as a doctoral thesis (Oxford, 1976). It is devoted to lengthy free
compositions (i.e. not dances, sets of variations, or short introductory sinfonias)
scored for instrumental combinations of two trebles, or two trebles and one
melodic bass instrument and continuo which today frequently masquerade
under the misnomer of ‘trio’ sonatas. My intention at the outset of this extended
period of study was to explain the enormous stylistic chasm which separates the
improvisatory rhapsodies of the early seventeenth century from the controlled
formalism of Corelli’s so-called Sonate da chiesa. My point of departure was in
fact the concluding chapter of Eunice C. Crocker’s comprehensive dissertation
on the Italian Canzona francese (Ph.D. Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Mass.,
1943), in which she drew attention to the sketchiness of current knowledge
about the precise nature of the sonata’s development, while issuing a provocative
challenge for future research:
We know in a general way that the ‘sonata’ eventually took over features of the canzona-
style and mingled them with features of the sonata-style, meanwhile evolving from the
variform principle a scheme of six, five, and finally four contrasting movements,
arranged in an effective sequence, that the center of gravity eventually fell upon the
second, which is commonly referred to as the ‘fugal’ movement. This fine-sounding
generalization is of no value to the cause of research in the seventeenth century,
however, if it cannot be supported by specific findings. Such findings must come from a
careful study of the complete works of each composer of the period, and then they must
be correlated both with past trends of the history of the ‘canzona’ and the ‘sonata’ and
with the developments which were consolidated in the sonata da chiesa.
Many of these ‘fine-sounding generalizations’ handed down to us from the
pioneering studies of Hugo Riemann and others were based largely on the
modicum of randomly selected examples to be found in the anthologies of
Wasielewski and Torchi. No one could seriously claim these to be representative
of the period as a whole, yet the validity of many of the theories based upon them
has remained almost unquestioned until quite recent times.
The years since Crocker’s study have seen a considerable growth of interest in
Italian music of the seventeenth century, yet the problems of source material still
remain a formidable impediment to a fuller understanding of the period. Much
research has focused on individual composers, or perhaps on a single location
Preface
Vlll
(no doubt due to the exigencies of a three-year doctoral programme) but apart
from William S. Newman’s Sonata in the Baroque Era, few systematic attempts
have been made to relate this material to the development as a whole. This study
aims precisely at that correlated appraisal of the complete works of each
composer advocated by Dr Crocker, and as such is based on the vast majority of
surviving ‘trio’ sonatas from the earliest known examples until the publication of
Corelli’s Op. I in 1681. The time-consuming task of transcription in no small
measure accounts for its long gestation period.
Despite determined efforts to the contrary, the overall form (if not the
content) has come more and more to resemble the bipartite arrangement
adopted by Newman. Although working from fundamentally different premises,
he nevertheless outlined some thirty years ago many of the problems and pitfalls
that all researchers in this field must encounter. Part I therefore deals with
matters of a general nature—instrumentation, terminology, genre, performance
practice, etc. Its prime aim is to present the sonata and its composers in the
widest historical context as a social and cultural phenomenon, the product of the
interaction of discernible environmental forces, and hopefully to arrive at some
clear understanding of the relevance of these works to the society which
produced them. Such an undertaking relies heavily on the many excellent
biographical and archival studies which have appeared recently, and these are
fully acknowledged in the appropriate places. I am nevertheless aware that in
some instances my indebtedness amounts almost to plagiarism: Bonta
(Legrenzi), Selfridge-Field (Venice), Schnoebelen (Bologna), Wessely-Kropik
(Rome). Above all, I wish to express my deep appreciation to Claudio Sartori,
whose Bibliografia remains the indispensable tool for any researcher in this area.
Part II, on the other hand, is based largely on primary sources. This includes
nearly every known ‘trio’ composition of composers who began publishing
instrumental music before 1681 and may therefore have contributed to the
development of the ‘Corellian’ sonata. However, a few exceptions have been
found necessary. First, composers such as Farina, Bertoli, and Viviani, all of
whose known instrumental collections were the products of service at foreign
courts, have been excluded on the grounds that they cannot properly be said to
represent Italian practice. Secondly, whereas in the sparse early years of the
century a few isolated works may assume a significance far beyond their
numerical importance, by the mid-century it seemed pointless to include those
composers such as Allevi and Placuzzi whose surviving contributions amounted
to no more than about half a dozen sonatas. Some substantially incomplete
printed editions have also not been included.
One ever-present problem in any analysis of seventeenth century music is the
question of terminology. Much research carried out at the turn of this century
