Concerto
(Fr. concert; Ger. Konzert).
An instrumental work that maintains contrast between an orchestral ensemble and a smaller group or a solo instrument, or among various groups of an undivided orchestra. Before 1700 the term was applied to pieces in a variety of forms for an even greater variety of performing media, voices as well as instruments; it was also used in the sense of ‘ensemble’ or ‘orchestra’. Not until the beginning of the 18th century was it applied consistently (though not exclusively) to works in three movements (fast–slow–fast) for soloist and orchestra, two or more soloists and orchestra (concerto grosso) or undivided orchestra.
In the late 18th century and during most of the 19th and the solo concerto was a
prominent form of virtuoso display, while, in the same period, the concerto grosso fell out of public favour; some of its aspects were subsumed by the short-lived form of the
Symphonie concertante. During its long history, the concerto has built on forms and procedures adopted by Corelli, Torelli, Vivaldi, J.S. Bach and later composers,
particularly Mozart, to develop into a form that ranks with the symphony and the string quartet in the range of its artistic expression.
1. Origins.
2. The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750. 3. The Classical period.
4. The 19th century. 5. The 20th century. BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARTHUR HUTCHINGS/R (1), MICHAEL TALBOT (2), CLIFF EISEN (3), LEON BOTSTEIN (4), PAUL GRIFFITHS (5) Concerto
1. Origins.
(i) Terminology.
‘Concerto’ probably comes from the Latin concertare, which can mean both ‘to contend, dispute, debate’ and also ‘to work together with someone’. The primary Italian meaning of concertare is ‘to arrange, agree, get together’, but both this and the other Latin definition (they are not mutually exclusive) were in use in the course of the form’s development. Thus the first known musical application, ‘un concerto di voci in musica’ (Rome, 1519), clearly refers to a vocal ensemble, a ‘getting together’ of voices. A mixed ensemble of voices and instruments is implied by the description of the first intermedio for the
marriage of Francesco de’ Medici (1565): ‘La musica di questo primo intermedio era concertato da …’ (there follows a list of instruments). Here and in many later instances the word concertato can be approximately translated as ‘accompanied’; the meaning ‘ensemble’ or ‘orchestra’ survived throughout the 17th century. Thus Trabaci (Il secondo libro de ricercate, 1615) referred to a ‘concerto de Violini, o Viole ad Arco’; and from 1671 G.M. Bononcini described himself on title-pages as ‘del concerto de gli strumenti
dell’altezza serenissima di Modana’ (a member of the Duke of Modena’s orchestra). About the beginning of the 17th century writers began to recognize the other latinate meaning of ‘concerto’, that is, ‘strive, contend with’. Michael Praetorius (Syntagma
musicum, iii, 1618) offered this more erudite definition; and Bottrigari (Il desiderio, ovvero De’ concerti di varij strumenti musicali, 1594) also showed himself to be aware of the
term’s etymology. It is unclear how widespread was the acceptance of this definition at this time, however.
(ii) Early use of the term: the vocal concerto. (a) Italy.
The term concerto was originally used to refer to vocal and mixed vocal and instrumental forms. The earliest publication to have used it is the Concerti di Andrea, et di Gio.
Gabrieli (Venice, 1587), which contains church music and madrigals in six to 16 parts. Performance by combinations of instruments and voices is implied in the preface, and these pieces are typical, in their short cadence-aimed motifs and frequent changes of grouping (flexible in the smaller works, fully antiphonal in the larger pieces), of much music for large forces that went under the name ‘concerto’. The motets by Giovanni Gabrieli in this collection are little different from those of his Sacre symphoniae of 1597; in the early period there was often no clear distinction of usage between ‘concerto’ and the Greek-derived ‘sinfonia’.
A similar practice is implied in the Intermedii et concerti for the wedding of Ferdinando de’ Medici, the publication of which (Venice, 1591) gives directions for the use of
instruments. Most informative in this regard was Praetorius, who provided numerous and elaborate instructions for concerto performance (Syntagma musicum, iii), and whose own music was crucial in transmitting the Italian practice to German-speaking lands.
Early concertos for small forces, such as Lodovico Viadana’s influential Cento concerti ecclesiastici for one to four voices and continuo (Venice, 1602, but composed in the mid-1590s), represented the adaptation of similar principles of limited forces. The connection is shown quite clearly in Fattorini’s Sacri concerti a due voci (1600), whose second
edition (1602) has four-part ripienos added with instructions for their use.
Throughout the first half of the 17th century, ‘concerto’ was a common term for Italian vocal music accompanied by instruments, applied with special frequency to church music. Works that use the term, or the entirely equivalent adjective ‘concertato’, include Simone Molinaro, Concerti ecclesiastici a due et a quatro voci (1605); Balbi, Partitura delli concerti ecclesiastici (1606); Ercole Porta, Giardino di spirituali concerti (1609); G.P. Cima, Concerti ecclesiastici (1610); Giulio Belli, Concerti ecclesiastici (1613); Francesco Milleville, Concerti (1617); Ghizzolo, Messa, salmi … concertati a cinque, o nove voci (1619; two choirs, with piano–forte effects and ripienos); Valerio Bona, Otto ordini di letanie … concertate a doi chori (1619); Milanuzzi, Armonia sacra di concerti (1622); Tarquinio Merula, Il primo libro de motetti sonate concertati (1624); Giovanni Rovetta, Salmi concertati (1626); Michel’Angelo Grancini, Sacri fiori concertati (1631); G.B.
Faccini, Salmi concertati (1634); Guglielmo Lipparino, Sacri concerti (1627, 1635); and Cavalli, Musiche sacre concernenti messa e salmi concertati (1656). Some such works continue the large-scale antiphonal tradition of the Gabrielis, but most are for smaller forces, such as Banchieri’s Primo libro delle messe e motetti concertato con basso e due tenori nell’organo (1620). The continuo is a constant element, and sometimes the
substitution of an instrumental part for a vocal one, an integral part of concertato practice, is explicitly permitted, as in Banchieri’s Vezzo di perle musicali (1610).
Among published secular concertos are Milleville, Il primo libro de’madrigali in concerto (1617); Monteverdi’s seventh book of madrigals (1619); P. Lamoretti, Primo libro
de’madrigali concertati (1621); Banchieri, Il virtuoso ritrovo academico … con variati concerti musicali (1626); G.G. Arrigoni, Concerti di camera (1635); Martino Pesenti, Il quarto libro de madrigali … alcuni concertati con violini (1638); Filiberto Laurenzi, Concerti ed arie (1641); and Biagio Marini, Concerto terzo delle musiche da camera
(1649).
Occasionally works otherwise entitled are described as concertos within a publication, for instance in Franzoni’s Apparato musicale di messa, sinfonie, canzoni, motetti (1613), Porta’s Sacro convito musicale (1620; ‘dovransi i presenti concerti cantar a battuta larga’) and Allevi’s Terzo libro delle compositioni sacre, for two to four voices (1668; ‘questo
terzo libro de’ spirituali concerti’), a late application of the term to Italian vocal music. (b) Germany.
In Germany all forms of the sacred concerto were developed by a large number of composers, Protestant as well as Catholic. The new Italian concerto practice became known in Germany through the writings and musical works of Michael Praetorius. The first four parts of his Musae Sioniae (1605) are subtitled ‘Geistliche Concert Gesänge’, and these and other works reflect the influence of the Gabrielis in their use of opposing groups of voices and instruments. Viadana’s Concerti ecclesiastici, for solo voices and basso continuo, which were reprinted in Germany, were also much emulated in
technique and form by composers such as Praetorius and J.H. Schein.
Praetorius was the first of his generation to combine elements of Italian practice with German traditions to create works combining polychorality and continuo-accompanied solo singing, as in his Polyhymnia caduceatrix (1619), containing mostly large-scale choral concertos for vocal soloists and choirs of instruments and voices. Also in 1619, the first publication of sacred music by Schütz appeared: the Psalmen Davids sampt etlichen Motetten und Concerten. Schütz used both ‘concerto’ and ‘motet’ for his
polychoral works, but those that incorporate elements of solo vocal writing are only called ‘concerto’. In the wake of these publications the geistliches Konzert became the central form of Protestant church music. The direct successors of these pieces are to be found in works published in the 1620s by Samuel Scheidt, Daniel Selich and Melchior Franck; and Praetorius’s influence can be traced even beyond the middle of the century.
Schütz’s Kleine geistliche Concerte (1636–9) reflect an interest in Italian secular music, for example that of Monteverdi (e.g. the seventh book of madrigals, 1619) and Caccini. Indeed, his Symphoniae sacrae (1629, 1647, 1650) contain reworkings of pieces by Monteverdi and Grandi. The first volume contains concertos for one to three solo voices with instruments; these differ, in their freedom and flexibility in the use of voices and instruments and in their declamatory text setting, from the works of composers who emulated Viadana. Most significant is the increasing independence of the instrumental ensemble. In the third part of Symphoniae sacrae the works for up to four solo voices, two obbligato violins (or equivalent) and up to two four-voice choirs of singers and instruments exemplify Schütz’s approach to the concerto form, combining expressive monody, exchange between solo and tutti, and contrast between solo vocal and
instrumental passages and polychorality.
In the subsequent generation both this larger-scale construction and the smaller-scale kleines geistliches Konzert remained influential. However, the German vocal concerto began to take on aspects of secular chamber music (more wide-ranging use of the instrumental ensemble) and opera (the use of da capo form). Some composers (e.g. Christoph Bernhard) incorporated aria-like settings of free poetry in between the settings of biblical text, thus creating cantata-like works. Even so, others, such as Dedekind and Schelle, continued to compose unified sacred concertos, setting biblical texts only, until the end of the 17th century; Weckmann’s concertos were also important in the
development of the form in the last part of the century, incorporating as they do elements taken over from cantata and oratorio as well. In this sense the term ‘concerto’ continued
to be used for multi-movement works for many years afterwards, including for a number of Bach’s church cantatas.
Concerto
2. The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750. (i) Preconditions and ancestry.
(ii) The two models: Roman and North Italian. (iii) The Vivaldian revolution.
(iv) Typology of the Baroque concerto. (v) Italy, after Vivaldi.
(vi) Germany, before Vivaldi. (vii) Germany, after Vivaldi. (viii) France.
(ix) The Netherlands and Sweden. (x) Britain.
(xi) The significance of the Baroque concerto.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (i) Preconditions and ancestry.
The instrumental concerto came into being in the last two decades of the 17th century. As originally conceived, the genre was a progressive offshoot of the sonata designed for performance by a string orchestra. Performance with only one instrument per part was rarely precluded but did not influence the basic conception. Orchestras on the modern pattern, with doubled string parts, began to emerge around 1670, notably in Rome and Bologna. From the start, the style and form of the concerto accommodated differences of status (between salaried and hired players) and ability (between advanced players and the rank and file) among the members of the orchestra, breaking with the more
egalitarian tradition of the sonata.
Large ensembles need large – which often means reverberant – performing spaces. It was normal in early orchestral music, represented by the sonatas and sinfonias (the terms are synonymous) of the ‘school’ of S Petronio, Bologna, under its successive maestri di cappella Cazzati (1657–71), Colonna (1674–95) and Perti (1696–1756), to prefer a robust style that brought into prominence only one instrument at a time. The imitative interplay of the traditional sonata was replaced by a homophonic texture employing thematic requotation, brilliant passage-work and concertato dialogue as substitutes for contrapuntal elaboration. The many sonatas with one or more obbligato trumpets written at Bologna from the 1660s onwards by such composers as Cazzati, Gabrielli and Torelli exemplify this new style, which is directly ancestral to that of the concerto. Indeed, several Bolognese trumpet sonatas contain passages for solo strings indistinguishable from those in early concertos. Moreover, the highly characteristic
thematic repertory of the natural trumpet, based on permutations of the major triad, the diatonic scale and the repeated note, was taken over unaltered into string writing,
imparting a new vigour and directness. The first concertos might with justice be called ‘trumpet sonatas without a trumpet’.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (ii) The two models: Roman and North Italian.
Since the layout of string orchestras in Rome and in northern Italy (Venice, Milan,
Bologna etc.) differed, correspondingly different approaches to the scoring and structure of the concerto developed in the two localities. Despite considerable cross-fertilization
and hybridization of the two types, they remained distinct up to the end of the Baroque period. In Rome the core of the orchestra was a ‘concertino’ of two violins, cello (or lute) and continuo – identical with the players needed for a trio sonata (who were often
employed as a group by a princely court). Complementing them was a larger body
(termed ‘ripieno’ or ‘concerto grosso’) made up of the same instruments, freely doubled, plus contrabasses and, usually, violas; this ripieno was commonly recruited from
freelance musicians. Roman concertos, therefore, normally employed four distinct violin parts.
In contrast, north Italian concertos were usually written for a simple orchestra in four parts. Where required, principal (solo) violin or cello parts were added to the
corresponding ripieno parts (a second principal violin was usually drawn, like the first, from the ranks of the first violins). The most common type of string concerto after 1700, the concerto a 5, employs principal violin, two violins, viola and cello (the continuo is either identical with the cello or separate). If the Roman model can be said to treat the ripieno as an extension of the concertino, the north Italian concerto prefers to treat its soloists as offshoots of the ripieno. This difference explains why the former adhered closely to the sonata tradition, whereas the latter struck out along new paths.
Among the earliest Roman concertos were probably those written by Corelli (1653– 1713), 12 of which were published in 1714 as his Concerti grossi op.6. Works of the same kind were certainly in existence by the early 1680s, when Georg Muffat heard them, but at that stage they were probably modelled very closely on the trio sonata. The published works, which Corelli revised in his last years, reveal some additional sources of influences – the solo violin sonata (shown by the preference for a five-movement
plan), the trumpet sonata (seen in the concertato dialogue opening the first Allegro of the 12th sonata) and the north Italian concerto (as in the brilliant semiquaver figurations for the first concertino violin later in the same movement). Nevertheless, their description as ‘amplified’ trio sonatas, with effects of light and shade supplied by the ripieno, remains a useful simplification. Corelli’s careful distinction between ‘church’ concertos (with
‘abstract’ movements) and ‘chamber’ concertos (with dance movements), paralleling the same division in his sonatas, was rarely observed by his successors and imitators in Rome, who included Giuseppe Valentini (1681–1753), Francesco [Antonio] Montanari (d 1730), Giovanni Mossi (fl 1716–33) and P.A. Locatelli (1695–1764). However, the Roman concerto – or, at least, Roman-style instrumentation – gained a new lease on life by
being transplanted abroad, first to Germany and then to England.
Quantz (1752) identified Giuseppe Torelli (1658–1709) as the inventor of the concerto. There is little doubt that the six concerti a quattro published alongside six sinfonie a tre in Torelli’s op.5 (Bologna, 1692) were the first works of their kind to appear in print.
Moreover, they conform to the earliest published definition of the concerto, in
Mattheson’s Das neu-eröffnete Orchestre (1713), by having a dominant first-violin part, as opposed to the more contrapuntal style of the companion sonatas (sinfonias).
Whether or not Torelli composed the first purely instrumental concertos, his were indisputably the first to circulate in print. Even more significant are Torelli’s Concerti musicali a quattro op.6 (Augsburg, 1698). This set of 12 concertos includes two
containing short passages for solo violin and one with similar passages for two violins. As in all concertos before Vivaldi, the solo passages are decorative rather than structural in function. In a preface Torelli explained (the need for the explanation is itself historically significant) that where ‘solo’ is written, only one instrument should play; elsewhere, as many as three or four players per part are acceptable.
alongside sinfonias) in the Brescian composer Giulio Taglietti’s op.2 (1696) and the
Concerti grossi a più stromenti op.2 (1698) by the Lucchese composer Giovanni Lorenzo Gregori. The latter works, musically very mediocre, are noteworthy for their collective title (Concerti grossi could be translated as ‘Concertos for full band’) and for the fact that, in the last movement of the fourth concerto, separate parts are provided for the solo violin and the orchestral first violins. The significance of the second feature is that it introduced the option of using orchestral violins, rather than merely continuo, to accompany the soloist.
In 1700 the Venetian composer Tomaso Albinoni brought out a landmark collection of sonatas (sinfonie) and concertos, op.2. The six concertos advance beyond Torelli by observing the three-movement (fast–slow–fast) plan regularly and adopting some of the stylistic mannerisms of the contemporary operatic sinfonia. Albinoni’s Concerti a cinque op.5 (1707) go still further, reintroducing fugal texture (but now in combination with solo writing) and providing examples of lyrical slow movements – these had previously
favoured simple chordal textures, sometimes enclosing a central section with rapid solo passage-work. Albinoni normally provided a separate volume for the principal violin, but the independence of this part from the orchestral first violins varies greatly from work to work, never dictating the structure. Other Venetian composers (Giorgio Gentili, op.5, 1708, and Benedetto Marcello, op.1, 1708) took a similar approach.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (iii) The Vivaldian revolution.
The earliest concertos of Albinoni’s fellow citizen Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741), written in the years leading up to the publication of his epoch-making collection L’estro armonico op.3 (1711) mark the first regular use, in the outer fast movements, of ritornello form. This form, adumbrated by Torelli but never clinched, is an adaptation of a scheme already in use for a few decades in the ‘A’ sections of da capo arias. The ritornello – one or more ideas constituting a refrain played by the full ensemble – is used to establish the opening tonality and subsequently to affirm the various other tonalities reached in the course of the movement; the alternate sections (episodes), scored for the solo instrument with a generally light accompaniment, accomplish the structurally important modulations and supply contrasting themes or figurations. Since the number of ritornello statements is not prescribed (in slow movements, the number of its statements may even be reduced to two, framing a central solo portion), the form is extensible almost without limit. Normally, however, the ritornello statements number between four and six, of which a central group visits, in succession, a series of related keys (beginning with the dominant or relative major and nearly always including keys offering modal contrast). Ritornello form was in fact the first musical form routinely to present the same material in the major and the minor mode at different points in the movement. Leaving aside their structure, Vivaldi’s concertos introduced an exciting new musical language full of simple, strong effects such as the orchestral unison, hitherto little employed outside opera. His solo parts in the fast movements set new standards of virtuosity and, to a limited but growing extent, started to offset the mandatory rapid passage-work with lyrical moments that prefigure the ‘singing allegro’ style of the later 18th century. All these features speedily became part of the universal language of the concerto – and, through stylistic osmosis, also of other genres. Vivaldi’s nine published collections of concertos, supported by hundreds of other
concertos circulating only in manuscript, were suited to performance in many different locales, including churches, theatres, banqueting rooms, concert halls and music
societies. Their appropriateness for so many functional contexts – sacred or secular,
chance, the rise of the concerto coincided exactly with that of music publishing in north-western Europe; each proved greatly beneficial to the other.
Vivaldi’s style continued to develop after op.3. Opp.4, 6 and 7, all published before 1720, crystallize still further the formal and stylistic traits introduced in L’estro armonico
(ironically, in view of its great historical impact, op.3 evidences these traits often rather unclearly, since the collection is overlaid by eclectic features, including the use of four violin partbooks, Roman style). During the 1720s Vivaldi wrote several ‘allusive’ (i.e. picturesque or programmatic) concertos, of which Le quattro stagioni op.8 nos.1–4
(rv269, 315, 293, 297) are the most highly developed examples. These import into purely instrumental music a repertory of onomatopoeic and pictorial effects that had long
existed in opera, a genre to which Vivaldi dedicated himself assiduously from 1713 onwards. Strangely, his programme concertos had no real successors within their own genre (except, perhaps, for Locatelli’s Il pianto d’Arianna), although they certainly exerted considerable influence on music in such other genres as the symphony and oratorio. In his last concertos, written towards 1740, Vivaldi adopted some of the galant mannerisms of his younger rivals.
Most of the favoured styles of treatment of the slow movement in the Baroque concerto are present in Vivaldi’s concertos. At one extreme, we encounter fully scored movements employing standard ritornello form (albeit on a reduced scale), besides the simple ‘frame ritornello’ mentioned earlier. The other extreme is represented by movements for one or more soloists, accompanied only by continuo and usually cast in binary form, that would be perfectly in place in a sonata (the middle movement of Il gardellino op.10 no.3 (rv428) is a good example). Through-composed slow movements, with full or reduced scoring, are also common, although close inspection reveals that many such movements are in a binary form lacking the normal repeats. In solo concertos the emphasis of the solo part is predominantly lyrical; it is usually notated in ‘outline’ form in the expectation that the
performer will, through improvised embellishment, produce a more flowing, expressive and individualized melody.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (iv) Typology of the Baroque concerto.
All the main types of concerto (leaving aside the Roman concerto as already described) were cultivated by Vivaldi. The most common type, totally dominant after 1710, was the concerto for one solo instrument and string orchestra, or ‘solo’ concerto. Originally, the principal part was entrusted only to a violin – and the violin remained by far the most popular choice – but in the three decades following L’estro armonico most other instruments acquired a repertory of solo concertos. Those for the cello, oboe and
transverse flute are particularly extensive. Only the double bass and the viola, it seems, were excluded (the latter not wholly, however, since Telemann left one example of a viola concerto).
Concertos for two solo instruments, either of the same kind or of different kinds, are, in structural terms, basically identical with solo concertos. There remains the problem of how to combine the two soloists in the solo episodes. Four solutions are favoured: (1) the two instruments team up in parallel 3rds or 6ths; (2) they play alternately, dialogue
fashion; (3) they play in imitation or some other kind of counterpoint; (4) one instrument plays a melody, while the other provides accompanimental figuration.
Concertos for more than two solo instruments follow the same pattern. The potential for giving the solo instruments (especially when wind instruments) independent or semi-independent parts in the tutti sections is often exploited. This feature, seen in Vivaldi but
more particularly in his German imitators (J.S. Bach, Telemann, Pisendel), looks forward to the orchestration of the Classical symphony. No satisfactory short form of description for concertos with multiple soloists exists in English (the Germans have Gruppenkonzert, literally ‘ensemble concerto’). Following Quantz, many present-day writers use ‘concerto grosso’ indiscriminately for any concerto with more than one soloist, but this practice is best avoided since it too often conflicts with the general usage of the period and proves confusing (using the same term for the Baroque concerto tout court is even less
justifiable).
Concertos for a group of solo instruments (generally between three and six) with
continuo but without orchestra were written in some quantity by Vivaldi and occasionally imitated by others – for example, by Boismortier in France and J.S. Bach in Germany (in his Third and Sixth Brandenburg Concertos). In German sources such works often
masquerade as sonatas, although their characteristics are entirely concerto-like. The distinction between ‘tutti’ and ‘solo’ (hence of ritornello and episode) is maintained by interpreting the former as the entire ensemble, the latter as a subgroup, either constant or variable in its composition. The ultimate reduction of the performing ensemble was to a single instrument, as seen in Bach’s Italian Concerto for solo harpsichord (1735), many aspects of which had been worked out in the same composer’s much earlier harpsichord and organ transcriptions of concertos by Vivaldi and others.
Finally, one should not ignore the tenacious survival, mostly in Italy, of the concerto a quattro (sometimes known as the ‘ripieno’ concerto), a linear descendant of the genre’s prototype. Such works are stylistically very heterogeneous. They sometimes adopt a complex contrapuntal language and, freed from the necessity to gratify a soloist, contain concentrated thematic development; on the other hand, they may appropriate the
simpler, treble-dominated style of the contemporary sinfonia. Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (v) Italy, after Vivaldi.
Italian composers contemporary with, or slightly older than, Vivaldi (Albinoni, E.F.
Dall’Abaco, F.A. Bonporti) rarely accepted his formal innovations completely, although they were influenced by his musical idiom in general and by the virtuoso character of his solo parts. The first Italian ‘Vivaldian’ was the minor Bolognese composer Giuseppe Matteo Alberti (1685–1751), whose op.1 (1713) distils – albeit in rather jejune,
stereotyped form – the essence of the solo concertos in L’estro armonico. The most significant Italian composers for the genre during the last phase of the Baroque period were P.A. Locatelli and Giuseppe Tartini (1692–1770). Born in Bergamo but trained in the Roman school, to whose practice his first set of concertos (op.1, 1721) conforms,
Locatelli internationalized (one could as easily write ‘modernized’ or ‘vivaldianized’) his style after settling in Amsterdam in 1729. His solo concertos published in 1733 as L’arte del violino op.3 are significant in two respects. First, they contain exceptionally long, polythematic opening ritornellos that prefigure those of the Classical concerto. Second, their fast movements all have an extended written-out cadenza (or ‘capriccio’), a feature that shows the growing importance of this device, encountered earlier in a few violin concertos by Vivaldi. The concertos of Tartini, who was born in Istria but spent most of his life in Padua, are noteworthy for the cantabile quality of their solo line, their highly symmetrical phrase structure (anticipating Classical style) and their characteristic way of accompanying a solo violin on the orchestral violins (in two parts) alone. Tartini’s activity as a teacher provides an important connecting link between the Baroque and Classical concerto. The production of concertos by composers of the Neapolitan school was low in comparison with northern Italy, but not negligible; those by Leonardo Leo (1694–1744)
and Francesco Durante (1684–1755) are especially fine. Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (vi) Germany, before Vivaldi.
Several general features characterize the German concerto. Because the genre was imported from outside, its evolution was more discontinuous, more inclined to make bold leaps than in its country of origin. The German cultural preference for contrapuntal rigour and thematic economy favoured the moderation of technical difficulties and the close integration of principal and subsidiary musical material – features associated above all with J.S. Bach but shared in some degree by most of his German contemporaries. The popularity at German courts of French instrumental music, typified by the ouverture, led to considerable hybridization; Bach’s First Brandenburg Concerto, which begins as a three-movement concerto but ends as a suite, is no isolated case. The substitution of rondo (rondeau) form for ritornello form, occasionally seen in Bach and Telemann, is another French-inspired feature. Lastly, the wider cultivation (and manufacture) of wind instruments in Germany, as compared with Italy, left its mark on the choice of solo, and sometimes also orchestral, instruments.
At the head of the line stands Georg Muffat. The five sonatas of his Armonico tributo (Salzburg, 1682), capable, according to the composer’s instructions, of being performed as concertos by observing the ‘solo’ (S) and ‘tutti’ (T) cues marked in the parts, were reworked as six concertos and partnered by six further compositions to make up the 12 concertos of his Ausserlesene Instrumental-Music (Passau, 1701). Benedict Anton Aufschnaiter, Muffat’s successor as Kapellmeister at Passau, published at Augsburg in 1703 a set of sonatas, Dulcis fidium harmonia symphoniis ecclesiasticis concinnata op.4, that, by their use of two solo violins, resemble concertos. All these works stand in the Roman (i.e. Corellian) tradition. The vital link with the north Italian concerto was made by the Swiss (or possibly Bavarian) amateur composer Henricus Albicastro (Heinrich
Weissenburg), whose sole published set of concertos (op.7, c1705) unites the
progressive formal and technical features of Torelli’s and Albinoni’s works with the dense contrapuntal writing and rich harmony of the south German school (Schmelzer, Biber, Muffat). J.G. Walther’s transcriptions for organ of concertos by Torelli, Albinoni, Gentili and other Italians, made in Weimar around 1710, attest the growing popularity of the concerto in Germany.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (vii) Germany, after Vivaldi.
Vivaldi’s first concertos struck Germany like a whirlwind; almost overnight, a generation of native composers began to imitate him. One of the earliest was Telemann (1681– 1767), who, despite avowing a dislike for the genre, wrote close on 100 concertos in an incredible variety of instrumental combinations, large and small. Telemann’s approach was individual and eclectic. More often than not, he retained an introductory slow
movement (something by no means general in Germany), and his fondness for binary form similarly harks back to sonata models.
More purely Venetian in inspiration are the concertos of the Dresden composers J.D. Heinichen (1683–1729) and J.G. Pisendel (1687–1755), both of whom spent some time in Venice during the 1710s and moved in Vivaldi’s orbit. The merit of being the first
German composer to publish concertos (Amsterdam, c1721) belongs to the Kapellmeister at Eichstätt, Joseph Meck (1690–1758), whose style is thoroughly Vivaldian. Other prominent names are those of Christoph Graupner (1683–1760) at
G.H. Stölzel (1690–1749) at Gotha. One should also remember the many Italian
musicians who worked at German courts, notably E.F. Dall’Abaco (1675–1742) at Munich and Fortunato Chelleri (c1690–1757) at Kassel.
J.S. Bach fits comfortably into this picture. There are echoes of Torelli in some of his ‘self-imitating’ melodic lines (for example, in the first solo entry in his Concerto for two violinsbwv1043). Mostly, however, he departed from Vivaldian norms only when following some ingenious plan of his own (as when he reduced the middle movement of the Third Brandenburg Concerto to a single bar containing only two chords). He was familiar with the genre well before the appearance of L’estro armonico, some of whose works are included among his 16 keyboard transcriptions of c1713. The Prelude of his Third ‘English’ Suite (c1715) demonstrates his already perfect mastery of ritornello form. Although individual concertos were probably written in his Weimar years, most extant examples come from the Cöthen period (1717–23), when, exceptionally, his duties revolved around secular music. In later life Bach returned to the precedent set by the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, writing a series of concertos for one or more harpsichords, all of which were intended for performance at the Leipzig collegium musicum. These, and their successor works within the Bach circle, established the primacy of Germany in the domain of the keyboard concerto.
Germany carved out another special niche in the shape of the flute concerto. Vivaldi’s pioneering op.10 concertos (1729) spawned a huge progeny in north and central
Germany. Best known and most numerous are those of Quantz (1697–1773), but Hasse (1699–1783), Scheibe (1708–76) and the Swedish-born Johan Joachim Agrell (1701–65) are other important names. The late Baroque flute concerto exemplifies in the highest degree the galant sensibility that reigned supreme in northern Europe in the mid-18th century.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (viii) France.
Like the opera, cantata and sonata genres before it, the concerto was an exotic plant that took a while to become acclimatized to French musical culture. Not until the 1730s did it take firm root. To do so, it needed to make several compromises with native taste. The style of melodic ornamentation remains French (ornamentation is applied to individual notes rather than to whole phrases), slow movements are most often conceived as airs tendres, and alternatives to ritornello form (especially binary form) are common in the fast movements. The earliest concertos published in France were a group of four, largely Corellian in inspiration, in the op.7 of the Neapolitan immigrant Michele Mascitti (1664– 1760) and a set of six concertos, op.15, for the unlikely combination of five flutes with optional bass by J.B. de Boismortier (1689–1755); both publications appeared in Paris in 1727. More conventional collections, by Michel Corrette (1709–95) and Jacques Aubert (1689–1753), date from 1728 and 1734 respectively. About 1735 J.-C. Naudot (c1690– 1762) brought out a set of flute concertos in imitation of Vivaldi’s. The first French
concertos to match the best of the Italians for substance and technical accomplishment were the 12 for solo violin by J.-M. Leclair (1697–1764), equally divided between op.7 (1737) and op.10 (1745). Leclair had an almost Bachian gift of developing, rather than merely restating, the material of his ritornellos. Of his French contemporaries, only Boismortier and Corrette continued to write concertos in any quantity after 1740. The surprisingly small number of concertos in relation to sonatas owes something to the continued popularity of the ouverture and its variants but even more to the rapid rise of the concert symphony, the dominant orchestral genre in Paris by 1750.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (ix) The Netherlands and Sweden.
Although publishers based in Amsterdam (Roger, Le Cène, Mortier, Witvogel) played a key role in disseminating the concerto in the first half of the 18th century, the composers represented in their catalogues were overwhelmingly Italian and German. The most
significant Dutch-born composer of concertos was Willem de Fesch (1687–?1757), three of whose collections (opp.2, 3 and 5) were issued by Roger; a further set, op.10 (1741), was brought out by Walsh in London after de Fesch settled there in the early 1730s. Like several English and some German composers, de Fesch inclined towards Roman style and scoring but north Italian form. The other noteworthy Dutch composer of concertos was the gifted amateur musician Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer (1692–1766), whose Concerti armonici, published anonymously in The Hague in 1740, were formerly attributed speculatively either to their publisher, Carlo Ricciotti, or to one of a number of composers, including Pergolesi. These remarkable works, all with four violin parts, join a Roman fullness of scoring to Neapolitan lyricism.
Musically speaking, Sweden, like the whole of the Baltic region, was under strong German influence in the 18th century; its musical community included many Germans and their descendants. Despite the widespread cultivation of concertos in Sweden, to judge from surviving sources, only one important native composer, Johan Helmich
Roman (1694–1758), contributed to the genre – and that sparingly. Roman inclines most strongly to Vivaldi, although echoes of Handel can also be heard.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (x) Britain.
The British public was introduced to the concerto for the first time in 1704, when John Walsh brought out, in the July issue of a periodical publication, the last concerto of Albinoni’s op.2. A trickle of concertos of the north Italian type – imported from Roger, ‘pirated’ by Walsh, acquired by visitors to Italy or brought in by immigrant musicians – had arrived by 1714, when Corelli’s Concerti grossi op.6 burst upon London. The impact of Corelli’s concertos in Britain was comparable to that of Vivaldi’s op.3 elsewhere. Their sobriety and solidity struck a chord in a culture that still took its values from 17th-century consort music. The Vivaldian type of concerto, dominant elsewhere outside Rome, did not quit the scene but led an uneasy existence alongside, and to some extent mixed up with, the Corellian type, which generally enjoyed the status of senior partner. Vivaldi’s concertos were mistrusted by many for their emphasis on virtuosity (easily viewed as ‘freakishness’); even solo concertos tended to rein in their exuberance.
The first concertos composed in England were possibly those of the German immigrant J.C. Pepusch (1667–1752). Some of them, including works with recorder or flageolet (both instruments were especially popular in England), predate his published set (op.8, c1718). In the 1720s the first native composers emerged – Robert Woodcock (1690– 1728) with his XII Concertos (1727) and William Babell (c1690–1723) with his op.3 (1730). In the next decade immigrant musicians strengthened their grip. The Concerti grossi op.2 and 3 (both 1732) of Corelli’s pupil Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762), resident in England since 1714, reaffirmed the spirit, and approached the popularity, of his master’s concertos. Geminiani gratified the British liking for ‘full’ harmony by
transferring the viola to the concertino group. The op.3 (1736) of Pietro Castrucci (1679– 1752), another pupil of Corelli, is cast in the same mould.
Geminiani’s greatest successor was his rival Handel (1685–1759), who had hitherto shown little interest in the genre. His op.3 set of 1734 (the misnamed ‘Oboe Concertos’)
was his first, not entirely satisfactory, response. The definitive answer came in 1739, when Handel wrote his Twelve Grand Concertos op.6, a perilously heterogeneous but wonderfully inventive collection in which Corellian, Vivaldian and totally original formal elements are applied to music whose stylistic allegiance moves freely between the
church, the ballroom and the opera pit. No other collection provides a better conspectus of the Baroque concerto in its totality. Op.6 shows how risky it is to draw conclusions about the nature of a collection from the number and nomenclature of its partbooks. At first sight, these are typically Corellian concertos, with a three-part concertino and four-part ripieno. Closer inspection, however, reveals one entire work (no.6) and several individual movements without any solo content; other movements feature a single violin soloist exactly as in a solo concerto. Handel’s most original contribution to the genre was his invention of the organ concerto, originally conceived as entr’acte music at
performances of his oratorios. The two sets with opus number, op.4 (c1738) and op.7 (posthumously issued in 1761), supplemented by a few extra works, make up a sizable corpus to which Handel’s many English followers, who included Henry Burgess, William Felton, Thomas Chilcot and John Stanley, also contributed. The sketchiness of the solo parts in many of Handel’s published organ concertos (with entire movements marked to be extemporized ‘ad libitum’) throws into relief a conflict of interest that inevitably arose whenever a composer was also a virtuoso on the featured instrument. By simplifying the notated solo part, Handel left space for the improvised filling and embellishment by which he, as soloist, would establish his superiority (in a similar spirit, Vivaldi often wrote
complex arpeggiated figurations for the solo violin as block chords).
As the rest of Europe passed via the galant style to the early Classical style, composers of concertos in Britain remained by and large faithful to Baroque models. Neither the op.3 of Francesco Barsanti (Edinburgh, 1742) nor the otherwise accomplished op.3 of Pieter Hellendaal (London, c1758) advances beyond Handel. Several native composers,
including Charles Avison (1709–70), Richard Mudge (1718–63), Michael Festing (d
1752) and Capel Bond (1730–90), kept alive the popularity of the concerto in London and the provinces but produced little of enduring value.
Concerto, §2: The instrumental concerto: origins to 1750 (xi) The significance of the Baroque concerto.
Its stimulus to the development of instrumental technique (and, indirectly, instrumental design, as illustrated by the progressive lengthening of the violin’s fingerboard) was only the most obvious of the concerto’s achievements. More strongly cultivated throughout Europe than either the ouverture or the operatic sinfonia, and much more widely
available in published form, it shaped the nature of orchestral sound and orchestral playing in their first hundred years of existence. It acted as an effective vehicle for
bringing new instruments (for instance, the transverse flute) and new performers to the attention of a mass public in almost all European countries. It bridged (even as it
widened) the gulf between the virtuoso and the rank-and-file player by providing a type of music in which each could find a place. Its wide acceptance contributed to the growing internationalization (on a largely Italian basis) of style and taste. Briefly, in the second and third decades of the 18th century, it energized the whole of Western art music by proposing new styles, forms and textures that, because of their radical simplicity, offered immense scope for further creative development. It was the first purely instrumental genre to exert a strong influence on vocal music, both sacred and secular, and in so doing raised the profile and reputation of instrumental music in general. The textural opposition between tutti and solo and the thematic opposition between ritornello and episode provided models of contrast that influenced all larger, sectionalized forms.
The surprisingly rapid replacement of the concerto by the concert symphony as the dominant orchestral genre in the middle of the 18th century has not been adequately explained in musicological literature. Indeed, the nature of the relationship between sinfonia (symphony) and concerto between 1700 and 1750 remains an insufficiently explored area. Unlike the symphony, the concerto did not adopt sonata form but instead continued in the second half of the century to rely on its tried and tested ritornello form, although certain increasingly common features such as the reprise of the material of the first solo towards the end of the movement are evidence of convergence between the two forms. In fact, the division between Baroque and Classical is invisible, structurally speaking, in the concerto.
Concerto
3. The Classical period.
(i) Composition, performance, dissemination. (ii) Italy. (iii) Germany. (iv) France. (v) England. (vi) Austria. (vii) Mozart.
Concerto, §3: The Classical period
(i) Composition, performance, dissemination.
By mid-century, the solo concerto had effectively supplanted the concerto grosso as the favoured form; works of this type were widely cultivated in Italy, Germany, France,
England and elsewhere. During the 1760s and early 70s, the most popular solo
instruments were the violin and flute, although concertos were also written for the full range of string and wind instruments as well as harp, guitar, mandolin and more exotic instruments (including the lira organizzata, five concertos for which were composed by Haydn for the King of Naples in 1786). By the late 1770s and 80s, however, the piano had become the most frequent soloist. The increase in the popularity of the keyboard concerto is documented by the Breitkopf thematic catalogues, which in 1762 included 177 violin concertos and 105 keyboard concertos; between 1766 and 1787, the number of newly listed concertos amounted to 270 for the violin but 393 for keyboard.
The circumstances surrounding the composition, performance and dissemination of
concertos varied. Not all of them were intended for a single audience, or for professional and semi-professional musicians. C.P.E. Bach's concertosh471–6, written for amateurs, were advertised as ‘differ[ent] from the other concertos of this composer in so far as they are more adapted to the nature of the harpsichord, are easier both in the solo part and the accompaniment, are adequately ornamented in the slow movements and are
provided with written-out cadenzas’; later Bach wrote, ‘Among my works, especially
those for keyboard, there are only a few trios, solos and concertos that I have composed in complete freedom and for my own use’. Many of Wagenseil's concertos were written in the first instance for private performance by the Imperial family in Vienna (although they eventually circulated through commercial music publishers; in 1762 the Mozarts
purchased more than 20 Wagenseil concertos from Viennese music dealers). The
‘Advertisement’ for Thomas Arne's posthumously published concertos recommends the work not only to ‘all Ladies and Gentlemen’ performers, but also to ‘every skilful
Professor … to cultivate among their pupils an elegant and masterly stile of performance’. Some concertos were first performed at public concerts (this was
especially true at the Concert Spirituel in Paris); many others, however, were given in more restrictive settings, often as part of a court entertainment, or privately, at domestic concerts (this was apparently the case with Mozart's concerto k449, composed in 1784 for his pupil Barbara Ployer). Additionally, concertos were performed between the acts of oratorios (notably in London, following the tradition established by Handel) and
occasionally operas or other theatrical productions; in Italy, in particular, they were given in conjunction with celebrations of the Mass.
This diversity of intended audience, performer and venue is reflected not only in the style of the works themselves but also in the make-up of the concerto ensemble. Many, such as J.C. Bach's op.1, call for a minimal accompaniment of two violins and bass; others, such as Mozart's mature concertos, are scored for a full complement of strings and wind. It is difficult to say if concertos were performed more frequently by their composers or by other executants; in Vienna at least, just under half of all documented concerto
performances during the 1780s and 90s were given by other performers. Most concertos distributed in northern Europe were available in printed editions; in Germany and Austria, circulation in manuscript copies was more usual.
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (ii) Italy.
The Italian concerto, cultivated notably by Giuseppe Tartini, Pietro Nardini (whose playing was praised by Leopold Mozart in 1763), Luigi Boccherini and Giovanni Giornovichi
(active in Paris), represents a tradition based primarily on binary forms and sonata-like procedures (Freeman, 1985–6). Giornovichi in particular is credited with introducing the romance as the most characteristic concerto slow movement, and for popularizing the rondo finale (White, 1986); his galant-style concertos include occasional formal novelties, among them solo openings to the first movements of nos.3 and 16, and joined second and third movements in nos.7 and 13. While Giornovichi's concerto first movements closely approximate to sonata form, the violin concertos of Mysliveček are more old-fashioned: the second tutti of the four-ritornello concerto in D major begins with the
opening theme, although it largely serves a closing function in the dominant; and the third tutti is a transition, cadencing in the submediant before leading to a recapitulatory solo, beginning in the tonic minor, that omits the ‘head theme’. Mysliveček's concertos were not widely disseminated, but may have influenced Mozart, who became acquainted with them in Vienna in 1773.
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (iii) Germany.
The north German violin concerto is associated primarily with J.G. Graun, a pupil of Tartini, and Franz and Georg Benda, the flute concerto with Quantz and the keyboard concerto with Christoph Nichelmann, whose 16 keyboard concertos were composed between 1740 and 1759, and in particular with C.P.E. Bach, who between about 1733 and 1788 composed numerous concertos, mostly for harpsichord (a double concerto for harpsichord and piano dates from 1788; Bach's ten surviving concertos for non-keyboard instruments are all transcriptions of keyboard originals). Bach's keyboard style is usually brilliant, the themes arresting and, as in his symphonies, the movements sometimes follow without a break; occasionally material from one movement recurs in another, as inh474 and 475. His first movements, like Nichelmann's, elaborate on the ritornello forms favoured by Vivaldi and J.S. Bach, where the soloist is left relatively free to present
thematic material different from that of the tuttis; at the same time, both introduce
Hertel (who additionally composed concertos for violin, cello, flute, oboe, trumpet and bassoon), on the other hand, are novel for their inclusion of a recapitulation combining both the opening ritornello and the first solo – this after three tonally stable tuttis, in the tonic, dominant and submediant, and three solos including, in the E concerto, a stable solo in the submediant, immediately preceding the return to the tonic.
Tartini's violin concertos also influenced the first generation of composers at Mannheim, particularly Johann Stamitz; his sons Carl and Anton, however, as well as Holzbauer, Fränzl, Cannabich, Toeschi and Eck, were increasingly inclined to the French models of Gaviniès and Devienne, which chiefly consisted of a sonata-based Allegro and a rondeau of lighter character and smaller dimensions – although they are more conservative in style than contemporary Mannheim symphonies (see Ward Jones, 1969–70). Stamitz's earlier concertos, however, are based on the ritornello principle, with three or four tuttis in various keys; many of his final movements are rondos. Wind instruments were
particularly favoured at Mannheim: it was for the Mannheim instrumentalists Wendling, Ramm, Punto and Ritter that Mozart composed the Sinfonia Concertante k297b (Paris, 1778, lost).
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (iv) France.
In France, where works for violin dominated, no new concertos were composed between Leclair's second set (1745) and Pierre Gaviniès's six published in 1764 (a single violin concerto in E major also survives), although concertos, chiefly by foreign composers
such as Pugnani, Ferrari and Johann Stamitz were popular. Gaviniès's concertos follow a four-tutti, three-solo plan, with the second tutti in the dominant and the third modulating from the submediant to the tonic; the song-like solos, restrained in their virtuosity, are variable in their relationship to the tuttis, sometimes relying on themes first given out by the orchestra, but often including new material. The most important later French
concertos are Viotti's, 19 of which were composed in Paris: the early nos.1–10 for
performance at the Concert Spirituel in 1782–3, five in 1783–9 while Viotti was based at Paris and Versailles (in the service of Marie Antoinette) and four works, all in minor keys, written during his tenure, from 1789, at the Théâtre de Monsieur (later Théâtre Feydeau). Ranging in character from the galant to the operatically dramatic, Viotti's ritornello-based concertos are brilliantly conceived for the soloist but only rarely include discursive or developmental passages; there is little engagement between violin and orchestra, which for the most part is straightforwardly accompanimental, with limited wind participation. At the same time, Viotti's concertos are stylistically modern in their abrupt modulations and mode changes. Among the early concertos, the opening tutti frequently modulates,
presenting a contrasting theme in the new key before returning to the opening idea as closing material; recapitulations frequently vary in the order of their material and content, sometimes including new themes (no.2) or omitting significant material from earlier in the movement (no.1); it is only from no.5 that a double return is standard. Slow movements are generally in binary form; finales are rondos. The E minor concerto, no.16, begins unusually with a slow introduction which returns at the recapitulation in doubled time values. Mozart apparently knew this concerto; about 1789 he composed additional trumpet and timpani parts for it (k470a).
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (v) England.
In England, Baroque traditions – including the composition of concertos for organ, a precedent set by Handel – survived in the works of Avison, whose concertos are based
on the model of the Corelli concerto grosso, and Thomas Chilcot (1756, 1765), which derive their keyboard technique and structure from Alessandro Scarlatti's sonatas. Arne's six concertos (published posthumously, c1787) are more modern in their phrase structure but variable in their movement-to-movement formal designs: two concertos (nos.1 and 5) have slow introductions; three (nos.1, 4 and 6) include minuet and variation movements: and two (nos.2 and 4) have jigs. For the most part, Arne's concertos are ritornello-based: the G minor, for example, includes five tonally stable tuttis and four solos, all of which modulate, except the last; this non-modulating solo is also the only section of the
movement that does not begin with the head theme. Abel's concerto op.11 no.3 – one of only a handful by him – also represents a hybrid: the opening tutti makes a strong half-cadence, but the first solo, although it includes a new theme, remains in the tonic.
Successive sections include a passage of extended keyboard virtuosity and a third solo that begins in the dominant with new material, before working its way to the submediant; the intervening tuttis recapitulate the opening ritornello, reproducing the closing material in the tonic only at the very end of the movement.
J.C. Bach's three sets of concertos for harpsichord or piano (op.1, 1763; op.7, 1770; op.13, 1777) represent a departure for the English concerto: composed after the Italian style, they are characterized by fluent melodies and clearly defined themes, distinctive secondary themes presented in the dominant by the soloist (beginning with op.7) and modulating free fantasy sections following the central ritornello, as well as full
recapitulations (an exception is op.7 no.2, where the recapitulation begins with the ‘new’ theme). Op.7 no.6 includes other typical features, including a medial ritornello confirming the dominant and repeating much of the opening tutti, with a prominent half-cadence; a free fantasy solo that leads to the submediant; and a recapitulation, at first shared by soloist and orchestra but then dominated by the keyboard (although not recapitulating the new theme from the first solo) that leads to a final, concluding tonic tutti. Later
generations of English concerto composers, including J.B. Cramer, were influenced not only by J.C. Bach but by other similar concertos, including a set of six by J.S. Schroeter (op.3, c1774; Mozart composed cadenzas to four of Schroeter's concertos). Cramer was also influenced by Mozart (he had performed k414 as early as 1785 meetings of the Anacreontic Society); by the late 1780s, other Viennese works, by Kozeluch and Vanhal, were readily available from English music dealers. At the end of the century, the most prominent composer of concertos in London may have been Dussek, the majority of
whose keyboard works were composed there after he fled Paris at the time of the French Revolution. Characterized by frequent remote modulations and expressive chromaticism, they are brilliant virtuoso vehicles, foreshadowing developments in the 19th century.
Particularly characteristic is the sprawling G minor concerto op.49 (published 1801) with its gesture-rich orchestral introduction.
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (vi) Austria.
In Vienna, the most important early composer of concertos was Wagenseil, who wrote numerous works in the genre. One concerto (Scholz-Michelitsh 262) in particular already adumbrates some aspects of the form adopted by later Austrian composers, including a ‘new’ theme specifically assigned to the soloist, the use of distinctive closing material and a recapitulation that follows the first solo rather than the orchestral exposition. Although the opening tutti of Wagenseil's concerto only hints at an imperfect cadence, it includes at least four different ideas; and, like Mozart's mature concertos, the central fantasy section and recapitulation must be understood as a lengthy solo – the form of the
approximating the sonata style of Mozart's concertos of the 1780s. Wagenseil's pupil Josef Antonín Štěpán also figures prominently in the history of the Viennese concerto; his output includes 38 works for solo keyboard and two for two keyboards. Unusually, eight of his concertos begin with minor-key Adagio introductions, for soloist and
orchestra, substituting for an opening tutti (in one case, the concerto in B , the
introduction is in the relatively distant D minor). Early concertos include three or four tuttis, on the model of Wagenseil; later ones have three tuttis and look towards the
sonata-style concerto of the 1780s. Haydn's early concertos include works for keyboard, violin, cello, violone, baryton, flute, bassoon and horn; a particularly fine work is the horn concerto of 1762 (hXIId:3), with its atmospheric slow movement exploiting the horn's lowest register. By and large Haydn's early concertos are conservative in style, similar to those of Wagenseil and the younger Georg Reutter, although they also show the
influence of C.P.E. Bach (see, for example, the organ concerto hXVIII:1, 1756, which includes a strong move to the submediant and a modulating ritornello leading back to the tonic; the binary form second and third movements, however, recall an older style); the late Trumpet Concerto (1796) is a fully realized example of the end-of-century sonata-based concerto.
Concerto, §3: The Classical period (vii) Mozart.
(a) Repertory, influences.
Unquestionably the most important late 18th-century concertos are those of Mozart: his surviving works include five for violin (k207, 211, 216, 218 and 219, 1773–5), one each for bassoon and oboe (k191, 1774, and k314, ?1777) and 23 for keyboard (from k175 tok595, 1773–91, including k242 for two and three keyboards and k365 for two
keyboards); a concerto for trumpet (k47c, 1768) is lost. The early concertos show diverse influences, including the Italian style of Nardini and Pugnani, the south German concerto represented by the works of Agrell and Leffloth (which were readily available in Salzburg at the annual book fairs), and works from as far afield as the concertos of John Stanley, the Amsterdam edition of which was distributed by Leopold Mozart's Nuremberg
publisher, Haffner. Among local Salzburg composers, Anton Ferdinand Paris, Anton
Cajetan Adlgasser and Michael Haydn all composed concertos before c1770; of Leopold Mozart's numerous works in the genre, only a concerto for two horns (1752) and one of five for flute (1755) survive.
A dominant influence was Wagenseil; the proto-sonata principles found there, sometimes including internal repeats in first movements, were later applied by Mozart in his concerto transcriptions of sonata movements by C.P.E. Bach, Eckard, Honauer, Raupach and
Schobert (k37 and k39–41, 1767), all of whom, except Bach, were German expatriates in Paris at the time of Mozart's visits there in 1763 and 1764. A similar set of transcriptions, after sonatas by J.C. Bach, was prepared about 1771–2. The Salzburg orchestral
serenade, a multi-movement work traditionally performed to mark the end-of-year
ceremonies at the Salzburg Benedictine University or to celebrate important occasions such as weddings and namedays, was similarly influential; traditionally these works included three or four symphonic movements and three or four concerto movements. Leopold Mozart was the prime local exponent of the orchestral serenade; by 1757 he had composed more than 30 works of this type, although only one survives, a serenade in D that includes the famous trumpet concerto as well as a trombone concerto. Mozart's earliest independent concerto movements are also found in serenades, including k63 (oboe and horn) and k100 (violin). Mozart continued to write concertos in his serenades of the 1770s, among them k185, 203, 204 and 250 (all for violin); k320, the so-called
‘Posthorn’ serenade includes a concertante that Mozart performed independently at his Burgtheater concert on 23 March 1783. Related to both the serenade and the concerto traditions are the Concertone for two violins (k190, 1773) and the Sinfonia Concertante for violin and viola (k364, 1779–80).
(b) Form.
The form of Mozart's mature concertos has been a subject of continuing debate. Some authorities describe the first movements as based on the ritornello structure of the ‘pre-classical concerto’, inherited from the Baroque and adapted to the newer style, including four tuttis and three solos. More recent thinking derives Mozart's concerto form from the model of the operatic aria, a tradition grounded in 18th-century music writings: Koch in 1793 described the concerto as an imitation of an aria – although this refers more to the expressivity of the works rather than, necessarily, form or structure. These differing
accounts reflect ambiguities in descriptions of concerto found in 18th-century treatises. Vogler (1779) described the form of the concerto as identical to the sonata, except that the two parts are not repeated; similar sonata-based derivations are described by
Galeazzi (1796) and Kollmann (1799). Scheibe (1745), Quantz (1752), Kirnberger
(1771–4) and Türk (1789), however, saw the form in terms of ritornello structures. Koch was of two minds: his 1793 Versuch describes a four-tutti form with a third modulating solo, based on the model of C.P.E. Bach; in his 1802 Lexikon, however, where Mozart is the model, he advocated a three-tutti sonata-form model.
The classic formulation is Tovey's, who described Mozart's concertos as a realization of the concerto principle in sonata form (1936). The tuttis do not function exclusively, or even primarily, as structural pillars around which concerto movements are built, but as contrasting sonorities, projecting points of tonal departure and arrival: the three tuttis represent the establishment, through texture, volume and sonority, of the tonic, while at the same time presenting important thematic material and serving as a foil to the later entrance of the piano; the arrival and consolidation of the dominant; and, at the end of the movement, the strongest possible confirmation of tonic and closure. It is incorrect to describe Mozart's concertos as having a recapitulatory fourth tutti: the material at the return is almost invariably shared between soloist and orchestra; except possibly in k467 there are no extended, purely orchestral passages comparable in scale to the beginning, medial or final tuttis; and the expressive function of the commingling of tutti and solo functions at the recapitulation is intended to represent the rapprochement of the
participants, not antagonism. These principles of construction – in which the character and ordering of the material reflects specific structural concerns – appear to have been worked out first in Mozart's vocal music (Feldman, 1996). However, the various aria types usually equated with the concerto are traditionally described as ‘bithematic ternary’ or ‘sonata form’ arias; accordingly, the basic idea behind each type is the sonata. By and large, the sonata principle of the early arias and concertos remained valid for the
Viennese works as well, while the dramatic form of the aria moved decisively away from the earlier model (Webster, 1996).
Within this larger complex, the first movements of Mozart's concertos follow a pattern consistent in its outlines, and the movements can be divided conveniently into a number of large structural units: (1) an opening ritornello, including a first theme, extended to a perfect cadence in the tonic, an active half-cadence on the dominant, a more lyrical group (up to c1778 this lyrical group tends to appear again in the first solo, as the principal theme of the second group; after that date there is usually a different solo second theme) and a concluding group; (2) the first solo, reiterating the first theme, followed by an orchestral flourish confirming the tonality, a modulation to the dominant
with new material from the soloist, a flirtation with a stable new key followed by a
secondary group, and an extension to a perfect cadence in the dominant and a coda; (3) a medial ritornello usually based on one of the forte passages of the opening ritornello; (4) a free development-like section representing the first part of the second solo and usually including two parts, the first a drive to a distant key (often the relative minor), the second culminating in a retransition to the tonic; (5) a recapitulation, incorporating the second part of the second solo, largely following the first solo but omitting the
modulation; and (6) a concluding ritornello, using material from the medial ritornello and interrupted by a cadenza (Leeson and Levin). The specific thematic details, and their arrangement, vary from work to work. Even some of the basic principles of construction are subject to occasional change: the opening ritornello of k449, for example, is the only example among Mozart's concertos to include a modulation (first to the relative minor and then to the dominant where, uniquely, distinctive ‘secondary’ material is presented), while in k488 the first solo is thematically identical with the opening ritornello and does not include a new theme in the dominant for the soloist although new material is
presented, first by the orchestra and then the soloist, in the medial ritornello.
Second and third movements are less fixed in their structural patterns. Romance-type movements, such as that of k466, occur as second movements, as do binary types (albeit of considerable complexity), rondos (k491) and variations (k450, 456, 482). Variation movements are also found as finales (k453, 491), as well as sonata forms (k175, original finale, and the violin concerto k207), although the more usual pattern is the sonata rondo (notable examples include k271, 456, 459 and 482). Mozart's treatment of the form is not static, and significant developments take place between his first
independent keyboard concerto and his last; while adhering to basic structural principles, no two concertos are exactly alike in structure and rhetoric.
(c) Mozart's contribution and beyond.
Beyond formal design, Mozart's significant contributions to the development of the
concerto include novelties of piano figuration and texture as well as a new conception of the relationship between soloist and orchestra. Developments in figuration can already be traced in the earliest solo concertos: k238 marks a break from k175 by including a greater variety of left-hand textures, while a noticeable increase in difficulty is apparent in the concertos from 1784 and later (Mozart himself described k450 and 451 as concertos ‘to make the performer sweat’). This difficulty derives in part from Mozart's greater
simultaneous use of the full range of the keyboard and the ways in which material is divided between the hands (compare, for example, similar passages in k456 and 467; ex.1). Perhaps the most significant development, however, is Mozart's generous
orchestral writing; the orchestra does not merely accompany en masse but also takes part in dialogue, sometimes corporately, sometimes individually – both as antagonist and co-protagonist – with the soloist. This trend is markedly expanded in the concertos from 1784 on – the symphonic character of the concertos from k450 is unmistakable – and in particular in k482, 488 and 491, where the wind instruments achieve parity with the
strings as part of the ensemble. Koch in 1793 described the concerto as ‘somewhat similar to the ancient tragedies, in which the actor expresses his feelings not to the audience, but to the chorus which, in turn, links itself intimately to the action, thus
qualifying itself to take part in the expression of feelings’ (Versuch, iii, 32); and Kollmann in 1799 wrote that ‘The best specimens of good modern Concertos for the Piano-Forte, are those by Mozart, in which every part of the accompaniments is interesting, without obscuring the principal part’ (Composition, 15).
Mozart's new conception of the relationship among soloist, orchestra and audience is expressed not only in the dialogues and participation of the orchestra but also in his continuo practice. Unlike other 18th-century concertos, where the keyboard soloist has two functions – as continuo player in the tuttis and soloist elsewhere – Mozart's soloist typically has three: within the large solo sections of his concertos, orchestral outbursts are often accompanied by a soloistic continuo that does not literally duplicate the
orchestral basses, projecting a solo personality even in these apparently
accompanimental sections; expressive manipulations of continuo writing and meaning can be found in k271 and k450 among others. In this respect Mozart's works look forward to concerto styles of the 19th century where continuo function disappears, as does the general character and expressivity of his works which, like the last three symphonies, are sometimes described as ‘alienating’, a reflection of Enlightenment ideals or a critical
response to contemporary thought.
