The twenty-second instalment of the Periodical Overtures in 8 Parts, continues Bremner’s publication of overtures written by Italian composers whose music was all the rage in London towards the end of the 1760s. In this case, the third by Niccolo Piccinni was originally published as the Overture to Le Contadine Bizzare an opera buffa by the Italian composer whose music was extremely popular in London during this period.

All 61 overtures, actually symphonies, in the complete series are being published monthly by Musikproduktion Höflich. Listen here before heading over to musikproduktion höflich to obtain your copy of the score and parts.

The Periodical Overture No. 22 is scored for the ubiquitous eight-part ensemble of two violins, viola, basso, two oboes, and two horns, and it conforms to a typical fast-slow-fast tempo plan. The first movement, “Allegro spiritoso,” launches the G major symphony with a brisk upward thirty-second note anacrusis that continues with an ascending arpeggiation in common time. Almost immediately, Piccinni plays with dramatic dynamic contrasts while the upper strings play scalar patterns above resolute “drum 8ths.” After a modulation to the dominant D major, the scoring drops to solely violins and viola (m. 33), who present a piano second theme that also ascends by means of an undulating motif. A crescendo at measure 41 drives to the end of the exposition (m. 46). It is followed immediately by a recapitulation in G of the first theme, since the movement’s form is a pattern that James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy label a “Type 1 Sonata.”[1] This pattern is sometimes called a sonatina; it is, essentially, a sonata form without development. When the second theme reappears (m. 64), it initially returns to D major, but it is soon pulled back to G major and cascades of descending scales then conclude the movement.

Piccinni’s “Andante con molto” movement certainly seems well-suited for the “refined” audience because of its shift to the parallel minor, sudden dynamic contrasts, and a scoring that is reduced to strings alone. It, too, is structured as a sonatina, with a first theme filled with rising-and-falling sixteenth-note arches. The second theme (m. 21), in G minor’s relative major, B-flat, uses longer-value eighth notes to pull the direction downward. G minor and the first theme reappear in measure 42, while the descending theme takes over in measure 58.

As had been true in Piccinni’s Periodical Overture No. 20, there is no real break between the end of the slow movement and the attacca start of the “Allegro” finale. It restores the harmony to the opening G major, and it again uses the sonatina structure. “Gallery” auditors would have appreciated the gigue-like characteristics of its disjunct opening theme in  time. Relentless drum 8ths return in the accompaniment, subsiding only at the arrival of the second theme (m. 22). Here, the winds drop out, the dynamic level is reduced to piano, and the violins seem “stuck” on a repetitive three-note group of rising pitches in the dominant D major. At last (m. 26), the upper strings break free to play measured tremolos above resumed drum 8ths. The drive of this section prepares for the recapitulation of the first theme (m. 38). The same scoring and dynamic changes recur for the reprise of the second theme (m. 59), while the vigorous tremolos and drum 8ths (m. 93) produce a compelling final flourish.

Alyson McLamore

[1] 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.