GIORDANI, Giuseppe 1751-1798

Vieni o Figlio ... Recitativo Istromentato. [Copyist musical manuscript]

Italy: ca. 1788.

Oblong folio (228 x 307 mm). Sewn. Notated in brown ink on 10-stave rastrum-ruled paper. [i] (title), 19 pp.

Scored for soprano voice (Alciade), horns, oboes, and strings.

With some annotations in later pencil to title, "Autore ignoto" [but by Giordani], and characters named in the recitativo.

Some soiling; several few small stains to title.

Alciade e Telesia was first performed in Bologna at Teatro Zagnoni on 6 January 1787.

Giordani "was a pupil at the Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto, Naples, where his teachers were Gennaro Manna, Sacchini, P.A. Gallo and Fenaroli, and where his fellow students included Cimarosa and Zingarelli. In 1774 he was appointed supernumerary maestro di cappella of the Tesoro di S Gennaro, Naples, taking over from Manna and becoming a leading figure in the city. As well as composing sacred music during this period, he was probably involved in teaching, as is attested by a manuscript counterpoint manual, attributed to him, set out in the customary form of a dialogue between pupil and teacher. ... Giordani’s La distruzione di Gerusalemme, produced in Lent 1787 (repeated in Lent 1790), apparently the first dramma sacro to be staged in a theatre, was an enormous success, and was hailed by the Gazzetta di Napoli (13 March 1787) as ‘vigorous and apposite music’. Goethe, who was present at the performance, recorded his impressions in his Italienische Reise (part ii, Naples, 9 March 1787), describing it as a type of spectacle almost indistinguishable from secular opera and almost equally as florid. ... Giordani enjoyed a high reputation in his day. His works were heard in the leading Italian theatres and abroad, in Lisbon, Madrid and Dresden. His music is characterized by a sound compositional technique, inventiveness and formal precision; in his opere serie graceful cantabile passages alternate with fluent bel canto virtuosity. The authorship of the popular song, Caro mio ben, attributed to both Tommaso and Giuseppe Giordani, remains unresolved." Ugo Gironacci in Grove Music Online.

Item #40867

Price: $325.00  other currencies