The "& p.rpos. of this dissertation ii to coriaier the duets of Steffani as sxnp1e. of the secular Italian cantata in the late seventeenth and e arl.y eighteenth centuries • It was impossible to attempt this, however, without first establishing which duets are aithentic. This involved detth.led study of the sources, and these led inevitably to consideration of the airoumatanoes in which the duets were composed, revised and copied. The opening chapters place the duets in the oontext of Steffani' a life as a whole and indicate that he began to revise them in 1702. Leoriptiona to poets, which are investigated in chapter three, provide some evidence for the authenticity of a group of duets (the group) which i. not to be found in the ajn source, B.L BM 23 k 13-20. These manuscripts wars written by the st important copyist of Staff ani's music, who was not Gregorio Piva (chapter four), and they a2nat certainly represent the nw collection of duets on which Steffani embarked in 1702 (chapter five). Of the five volumes now missing, four mq be deduced from other early sources, and. the fifth from later manuscripts (chapter six: the Che volele group). The original versions of duets that were revised do not appear in the maii sources, but in other manuscript a discussed in chapter seven. The musical discussion begins with a bao]cground chapter concentrating on Staff ani' a nusioal education and development, and. on the Italian cantata and. duet in general • The following chapters, on the texts, style, forms and revisions of his duets, show that these works reflect the influence of the madrigal as well as of the cantata; that they incorporate French stylistic trait.; and that in some respects they resemble the contemporary trio sonata. The revisions represent a changed attitude to the form of the duet: compared with the original versions, they comprise a smaller number of longer movements, of which a higher proportion are duets (not solos) and are not repeated. In a brief Postscript, consideration is given to some duet. of doubtful authenticity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:475255 |
| Date | January 1977 |
| Creators | Timms, C. R. |
| Publisher | King's College London (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-chamber-duets-of-agostino-steffani-16541728-with-transcriptions-and-catalogue(98906026-8b93-48f2-be6c-fe71a7244d54).html |
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