Listen here before heading over to musikproduktion höflich to obtain the score and parts.
In addition to Jommelli’s operatic achievements, his reputation was [well known] in England, thanks to his sacred work Le passione that had been performed several times in London, starting in 1764.[1] Therefore, it must have been something of a coup for Bremner to obtain a symphonic work from him to include in the British series. To create his contribution, Jommelli combined two pre-existing components: a transposed version of the first movement of his sinfonia for the opera Demetrio, coupled with a chaconne that is identified as “Op. V, No. 13” in the Conservatorio di Napoli library.[2] Michael Kelly (1762–1826)—a singer/composer who studied with Mozart for a time—reported that this “chacoone” had been used for operatic dance music in Stuttgart.[3] The conservatory manuscript itself is undated, and there is also controversy concerning the dating of the opera. Its libretto lists the premiere as taking place in Parma in the spring of 1749, and that information is reproduced in most standard reference works.[4] Nevertheless, Helmut Hell cites a 15 September 1750 letter from the librettist Metastasio to the castrato Farinelli, commenting that Jommelli had just received the Demetrio libretto and was currently at work on composing the score. Hell also believes the letter implies that Jommelli was composing the opera for Madrid (where Farinelli was employed).[5] A scholarly consensus has not been reached, but it is clear that Bremner announced the publication of the composite version on 31 May 1766. The advertisement gave special billing to the second movement, which he described as “the delightful Chaconne.”[6]
There is plenty of proof that audiences indeed found the “symphony with chaconne” delightful. Scholar Jenny Burchell has tabulated sixteen documented performances by the Edinburgh Musical Society between the years 1768 and 1786, as well as ten performances in Oxford occurring between 1788 and 1799, along with a 1793 performance in Bath.[7] In 1785, a Moravian community was founded in Fairfield, England, and Jommelli’s Periodical Overture No. 14 was among the works in their music library.[8] Clear into the nineteenth century, various publishers issued keyboard arrangements made by William Smethergell (1751–1836), a “T. Lyon,” or a “W. Watts.” Four-hand versions were also issued, by an uncredited arranger for Preston and again by Watts for Lonsdale. It is very likely that the “overtura” found by Robert Stevenson in the Colegio de Santa Rosa collection in Morelia, Mexico, is also a copy of the Periodical Overture.[9] More than thirty years after Bremner first printed the work, Michael Kelly was responsible for assembling the music for a gothic drama titled The Castle Spectre (1797). In his Reminiscences, he recalled, “For the situation in which the Ghost first appears . . . to her daughter . . . I selected the chacoone [sic] of Jomelli, as an accompaniment to the action. This . . . was thought an odd choice of mine for so solemn a scene; but the effect which it produced, warranted the experiment.”[10] Thereafter, published scores cited The Castle Spectre on their title pages as an additional marketing effort. The 1798 publication by L. Lavenu made the theatrical reference particularly explicit: The Favorite Movement, Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, During the appearance of the Ghost, in the Drama, of the Castle Spectre, adapted for the Piano Forte, by T. Lyon.[11]
It is not clear what led Jommelli to select the first movement of the Demetrio sinfonia to serve as the “Allegro di Molto” in Periodical Overture No. 14, especially since it necessitated a transposition from the operatic overture’s F major to the E-flat major key used in Bremner’s publication. However, it has an effervescent spirit that makes a nice contrast with the subsequent chaconne. The score calls for Bremner’s standard eight parts, including paired oboes and horns, but the basso part contains bassoon cues as well. The movement’s form is a pattern that James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy label a “Type 1 Sonata,” which is sometimes called a sonatina; it is, essentially, a sonata form without development.[12] It opens with three hammer blows that return two bars later after busy sixteenth-note flourishes. The second theme (m. 15) features numerous neighbor-motion oscillations. The “Jommelli crescendo”—that would soon be more widely credited to the Mannheim composers—begins in measure 43 during the recapitulation; it acts as the bridge between the first (m. 28) and second (m. 47) themes.
The “celebrated Chaconne,” marked “Andante,” relies on a steady four-measure phrase structure in triple meter rather than strict repetitive melodic or harmonic patterns. Although certain motifs recur from time to time, the movement’s primary interest is in the variety of material offered during the regular phrases, which resemble a slow minuet.[13] Jommelli showcases the winds at several points, particularly in measures 62, 94, 138, and 154. The accompaniment, too, employs a wide array of different figurations, adding another appealing layer of variety to the texture.
The impact of Bremner’s publication is apparent in the numerous imitations that it spawned. Some retained Jommelli’s two-movement structure, such as François-Hippolyte Barthélemon’s Op. 6, no. 5, William Smethergell’s Op. 5, no. 4, and the overture to Stephen Storace’s No Song, No Supper (1790).[14] Probably the most popular chaconne-only imitator was Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, who used that structure in the overture to Le pazzie d’Orlando (1771).[15] It is regrettable that Jommelli himself did not live to see the extended influence of his creativity.
Alyson McLamore
[1] McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn, 150.
[2] Dinko Fabris, commentary for “Niccolò Jommelli: Ciaccona op. 5 n. 13,” Veni Creator Spiritus, Cappella de’ Turchini, conducted by Antonio Florio, Tesori di Napoli Vol. 9, transl. Avril Bardoni, Opus 111 OPS 30-254, 10.
[3] Aubrey S. Garlington, Jr., “‘Gothic’ Literature and Dramatic Music in England, 1781–1802,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 15, no. 1 (Spring 1962): 56.
[4] McClymonds et al., “Niccolò Jommelli,” 182.
[5] Helmut Hell, Die Neapolitaniche Opernsinfonie in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts: N. Porpora—L. Vinci—G. B. Pergolesi—L. Leo—N. Jommelli, Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte, Vol. 19 (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1971), 594.
[6] The Public Advertiser, 31 May 1766, p. 1.
[7] Jenny Burchell, Polite or Commercial Concerts?: Concert Management and Orchestral Repertoire in Edinburgh, Bath, Oxford, Manchester, and Newcastle, 1730–1799, Outstanding Dissertations in Music from British Universities, ed. by John Caldwell (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 309–374 passim.
[8] Karl Kroeger, “An Unknown Collection of Eighteenth-Century Instrumental Music,” Fontes Artis Musicae 35, no. 4 (October–December 1988): 277, 280.
[9] Robert Stevenson, Renaissance and Baroque Musical Sources in the Americas (Washington, D.C.: Organization of American States, 1970), 189.
[10] Garlington, “‘Gothic’ Literature and Dramatic Music in England, 1781–1802,” 56.
[11] The British Library, h.721.bb.(2).
[12] James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 345–6.
[13] Simon McVeigh, “The Symphony in Britain,” in The Eighteenth-Century Symphony, ed. Mary Sue Morrow and Bathia Churgin, Vol. I of The Symphonic Repertoire (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 647; McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn, 142.
[14] McVeigh, “The Symphony in Britain,” 648.
[15] McVeigh, Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn, 139.