The other day I happened to drive with the radio on. For me, things have been leaping out of bushes and saying, “Hey, you need this bit!” NPR has been having the same random impact effectiveness as Wikipedia, lately. Perfectly normal afternoon. The NPR announcer noted that Locatelli wrote “The Art of the Violin,” one of the most influential treatises on the art of the playing the violin of the time, and still useful today.
I can take a bloody hint when it smacks me in the face.
I was interested for several reasons. For one thing, I like the major teacher there, Arcangelo Corelli. Everybody does. Corelli shows up all over on the cheap compilation classical disks.
But Locatelli? New to me. And the dates. Hmm. And then there’s Locatelli’s life in Amsterdam. Was Simon there for awhile? Would Simon be interested in those dates, perhaps?
There’s a link to a sample of the music. When you hear it, you can imagine somebody tweaking things like this to produce the kind of doggerel that was sent to Salley. Also, please note that there’s free music scores available, link at the end.
You can also imagine Dance practicing it, sweating like a pig and swearing at himself. I think the book would make a great present for Dance. With the thought that he might already be familiar with it, Iw as checking for the book’s availability. I don’t see cheap translations and practice scores for serious students–such texts might be out there under some other name.
So I’m wondering if Emma tracked it down. Or if she tried to, and couldn’t find it–but somebody else did, and sent it, anonymously.
Just wondering…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Locatelli
As Wikipedia notes:
Pietro Antonio Locatelli (September 3, 1695–March 30, 1764) was an Italian composer and violinist.
Locatelli was born on September 3, 1695 in Bergamo in Italy. A child prodigy on the violin, he was sent to study in Rome under the direction of Arcangelo Corelli. Little is known of his subsequent activities except that he finally settled in Amsterdam in 1729, where he died on March 30, 1764.
Locatelli was a master at the violin, said to have never played a wrong note — except once, when his little finger slipped and got stuck in the bridge of his instrument
Locatelli’s works are mainly for the violin, an instrument on which he was a virtuoso. His most significant publication is probably the Arte del violino, opus 3, a collection of twelve concertos for the instrument which incorporate twenty four technically demanding capriccios (or caprices) – these could function as extended cadenzas, but are now usually extracted and played in isolation from the concertos.
Locatelli also wrote violin sonatas, a cello sonata, trio sonatas, concerti grossi and a set of flute sonatas (his opus 2). His early works show the influence of Arcangelo Corelli, while later pieces are closer to Antonio Vivaldi in style.
Locatelli may be best known to the modern public for a piece that does not actually exist. Master and Commander, the first novel in Patrick O’Brian‘s Aubrey–Maturin series, begins with the famous line: ‘The music-room in the governor’s house at Port Mahon, a tall, handsome, pillared octagon, was filled with the triumphant first movement of Locatelli’s C major quartet.’ In fact, Locatelli is not known to have written any quartets.
The chamber piece used for this scene in the movie adaptation of Master and Commander was actually a quintet by Luigi Boccherini in C Major.
L’Arte del Violino, printed in Amsterdam in 1733, was one of the most influential musical publications of the early eighteenth century. [1] It is a collection of twelve concertos for solo violin, strings and basso continuo, with a ‘capriccio’ for unaccompanied violin inserted into the first and last movements of each concerto as a sort of cadenza.
sampel of the sound:
Sonata in D, 1st movement
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Sonata in D, 1st movement - Problems playing the files? See media help.
- Pietro Locatelli free scores in the International Music Score Library Project
In looking up the book’s availability, why, gee, I find it not very available.
As in, Emma heading off to the rare books dealers, and goodness only knows how much it costs.
I don’t why it’s so amusing to read things like this in the Amazon website, but nearly all the copies that they list were the original book, published at the original date.
I had no idea Dance either knew Italian, or was willing to learn it for something like this.
L’Arte del Violino. xii. Concerti, cioe [IMPORT] (Unknown Binding)
- Unknown Binding
- Publisher: M. C. Le Cene (1733)
- ASIN: B0000CZ0VU
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
- Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet
I did find a related book called, The Early Violin and Viola: A Practical Guide (Cambridge Handbooks to the Historical Performance of Music) (Paperback) which inluces:
Excerpt – page 15: “… THE REPERTORY AND PRINCIPAL SOURCES 15 challenged by Pietro Locatelli, whose L‘arte del violino Op. 3 incorporates as cadenzas twenty-four capriccios of high technical …”
link here: