Methodology and Structure

As the overview of the literature makes evident, previous musicologists have studied Galuppi's masses, operas, and solo motets, but they have neglected his vespers psalms; those few studies which have addressed them have done so only superficially, with little consideration of important questions such as stylistic development, compositional idiosyncrasies, formal approaches, questions of authenticity, and what those factors might collectively tell the twenty-first-century musicologist about music in settecento Venice.

The core of this work is the analysis in chapter eight. It consists of an examination of the vespers psalm settings for voices and orchestra that survive in Galuppi’s autograph manuscripts.1 _{It includes a study of the structural qualities}

of each of these works, a study of the vocal styles, the characteristics of the instrumental writing, analysis of the use of the psalm texts, as well as the relationship of text to music, an examination of idiosyncrasies, and any other

1 _{Although many manuscripts of Galuppi’s works without autographs still}

survive, those works are not covered by this study because of questions of authenticity, as Janice B. Stodigt and Michael Talbot have discussed. See Vivaldi

vero o falso: Problemi di attribuzione, ed. Antonio Fanna and Michael Talbot,

salient compositional attributes. It should subsequently be possible to identify and articulate specific characteristics of Galuppi's compositional language and to use those characteristics to shed light on the authenticity issues that plague other Galuppi attributions through the application of multiple theoretical techniques, including traditional harmonic analysis and Robert Gjerdingen's schemata theory. Traditional Roman numeral analysis helps identify tonal features unique to Galuppi’s works, particularly as it relates to formal structure. It provides a basis for gauging the degree to which Galuppi's use of harmony may have been typical or atypical in Venetian sacred music. Gjerdingen's schemata analysis may be a particularly useful tool for music of this period, in that it categorizes melodic gestures and their accompanying bass lines. Since schemata analysis examines horizontal melody and bass lines, harmonic analysis examines vertical sonorities, and formal analysis examines the way in which those elements contribute to the overall architecture of a musical work, combining these methods helps formulate a fuller picture of Galuppi's compositional language than previous studies have presented.

The analysis section of this study includes two more narrowly focused studies. One is a comparison of Galuppi’s strategies in structuring the doxologies of the autograph vespers psalms; since they are all settings of the same text, there are numerous points of comparison. The other is a study of two psalms, for each

of which Galuppi created two versions of the same composition: the E-flat major

Dixit Dominus (II/16) and the D-major Dixit Dominus (II/15).2

Six tangential inquiries precede the central analysis. Each consists of a single chapter and provides essential context for the data in chapter eight. Chapter two addresses omissions of biographical detail and the correction of falsehoods perpetuated over centuries, which are necessary in order to accurately place the composer within the framework of the Venetian settecento. Chapter three investigates Galuppi’s role as the public face of Italian music amid the flourishing of printed music criticism during the period, and of the nationalistic undercurrents among Italian, German, and French factions of the opera world. It considers the composer’s reception history in order to answer important

questions about Galuppi’s posthumous legacy. Chapter four places the vespers psalms within the context of Galuppi’s overall compositional output, including his dramatic and instrumental works. Chapter five positions the vespers psalms against those of the Venetian predecessors who worked in the same professional milieu that Galuppi would later inhabit. It includes analysis of the sacred works of Antonio Lotti, Antonio Vivaldi, and Benedetto Marcello. Chapter six frames Galuppi’s vespers psalms against those of his contemporaries, Giuseppe

2 _{This and all subsequent references to specific compositions of Galuppi’s}

use the catalog numbers of Burde’s Verzeichnis. See Ines Burde, “Thematisch- systematisches Verzeichnis der venezianischen Kirchenmusik von Baldassare, Galuppi,” Die venezianische Kirchenmusik von Baldassare Galuppi (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2008).

Saratelli, Antonino Biffi, Nicola Porpora, and Ferdinando Bertoni, in order to appropriately situate them within the context of eighteenth-century Venetian sacred music. Chapter seven examines the liturgical, musical, and textual components of vespers at the institutions where Galuppi worked, in order to answer questions about the time, place, and circumstances under which these pieces were intended to be performed.

Following the analysis in chapter eight, the final component is a summary of each of the works in order to supplement Burde’s Verzeichnis. It includes observations of individual characteristics of each of the works studied,

speculation on their provenance, and, wherever possible, extrapolation of details of the circumstances of their creation.

The specific works studied in this dissertation are the following (listed by manuscript location, according to their entry in Burde's Verzeichnis):

From Genoa: Conservatorio di Musica Niccolò Paganini, I-Gl

D-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/4) G-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/7) A-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/8) D-major Dixit Dominus (II/15) E-flat-major Dixit Dominus (II/16) B-flat-major Lauda Jerusalem (II/26) F-major Nisi Dominus (II/49)

From Venice: Procuratoria di San Marco, I-Vsm

C-minor Confitebor tibi Domine (II/3) A-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/9) G-major In convertendo Dominus (II/23) G-major Laudate pueri (II/38)

B-flat-major Laudate pueri (II/41) E-flat-major Laudate pueri (II/42)

From Naples: Conservatorio di Musica S. Pietro a Majella, I-Nc

C-major Dixit Dominus (II/12) D-major Domine probasti me (II/19) G-major Lauda anima mea (II/25)

A-minor Laudate Dominum quoniam bonus (II/30)

From London: The British Library, GB-Lbm

A-minor Credidi propter (II/11) G-major Laudate pueri (II/39)

From Oxford: Bodlean Library

A-major Uncatalogued Laudate pueri fragment

From Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, F-Pn

B-flat-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/10) B-flat-major Dixit Dominus (II/18)

E-major Laudate Dominum (II/28)

From Cologne: Musikhistorisches Museum Heyer, D-Köln

F-major In convertendo Dominus (II/22)

From Washington D. C.: Library of Congress, US-Wc

A-major Qui habitare (II/44)

From New York, US-NY: The Morgan Library and Museum, US-NY

C-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/2)

Of the surviving autograph vespers psalms, the following manuscripts have not been available for study:

From Dijon: Bibliothèque du Conservatoire, F-Dc

G-major Confitebor tibi Domine (II/5) G-major Laudate pueri (II/35)

B-flat-major Laudate pueri (II/40)

From Genoa: Conservatorio di Musica Niccolò Paganini, I-Gl

C-major Beatus vir (II/1) D-major Dixit Dominus (II/14) D-major In exitu Israel (II/24) C-major Laudate Dominum (II/27) G-major Laudate Dominum (II/29) C-major Laudate pueri (II/31)

D-major Laudate pueri (II/32) G-major Laudate pueri

Powerful strokes of fiery imagination, sublime blend in the accompanying lines, gently captivating emotion in the vocal lines were the exquisite characteristics of Galuppi’s operas... There was so much naturalness, ease, and simple tunefulness in his operas that after a performance one could always hear the arias being hummed… This was the comic opera. He was its founder and innovator, and deserves an eternal monument on every comic stage. The incisiveness of the characters, the ridiculousness of its personages, the fire in its contrasts, the variety in the multi-voiced finales, with which most sections or first acts end, in short, everything that we have labelled operetta or intermezzo must regard the great Galuppi as its musical father.1

- Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler, 1778