Giovanni Battista Vitali - Da Camera Sonatas

Da Camera Sonatas

The bulk of Vitali’s output consists of dance music. His last collection of dance music, and his last printed work, Sonate da camera a tre, Opus 14 (1692), was published posthumously by his nephew Tomaso Antonio Vitali in 1692.

Correnti, e Balletti da camera, Opus 1 (1666a), was first printed in Bologna and was reprinted four times during Vitali’s lifetime. The collection contains twelve balletti and twelve correnti. The dances are all short, typically sixteen bars in length for the balletti and forty-eight bars for the correnti; in binary form.

In Vitali’s next dance collection, Balletti, correnti alla francese, Opus 3 (1667), we see a greater diversity of dances: as well as pairs of balletti and correnti, there are gagliardas, a canario, a sarabanda, two sinfonias and a brando suite in several sections. The set is scored for two violins, viola and continuo but the viola part has little melodic interest and tends to fill in the harmony.

In Vitali’s third set of dance music, Balletti, correnti, gighe, allemande e sarabande a violino, violone o spinetta con il secondo violino a beneplacito, Opus 4 (1668), he states on the title page that the second violin part is optional.

We find a greater variety of dance types in Opus 4 than in Vitali’s previous da camera collections. There are twenty-four pieces: ballettos, allemandas, gigas, correntes, sarabandas and a rare example of a zoppa.

In Balletti, correnti e capricci per camera, Opus 8 (1683), Vitali returns to a relatively simple arrangement of paired balletti and correnti with the addition of one giga and two final movements entitled Capriccio. Each pair of balletto and corrente shares both a key and thematic material. The concluding capricci of Opus 8 are contrapuntal pieces.

The most significant point of interest in Varie Sonate Alla Francese, & all' itagliana à sei Stromenti, Opus 11 (1684), is the unusual scoring of three violins, two violas (one alto viola and one tenor viola) and continuo – although, as mentioned above, Vitali makes it clear in his preface that the middle parts can be regarded as ad lib. The thirty dance movements that make up this collection are grouped together by key. Dance types include a balletto, capriccio, introdutione, gavotta, giga, borea, zoppa, sarabanda and corrente.

The next collection of da camera sonatas, Balli in stile francese a cinque stromenti, Opus 12 (1685), is scored a quattro, for two violins, viola and continuo. The dances are grouped together according to key, not presented in pairs as is the case with Vitali’s Opera 1, 3 and 8. Each suite starts with a balletto and continues with three or more dances, either giga, borea, gavotta, minuet or sarabanda. The final group presents a brando followed by four more dances.

In Vitali’s last published collection, Sonate da camera a tre, due violini e violone, Opus 14 (1692), the forty-four movements, including examples of ballo, giga, borea, minuet, gavotta and zoppa, are divided into eight suites. Like Opus 8, there are thematic links between the dances in some of the suites.

The remaining collection of da camera sonatas, Varie partite del passemezo, ciaccona, capricii, e passagalli, a tre due violini, e violone, o spinetta, Opus 7 (1682), is a highly unusual set for the period, containing only dance movements employing variation technique, rather than balletti, correnti and other common dances. There are two Partite, one using the chord pattern of the passamezzo moderno and the other of the passamezzo antico, a Ciaconna, based on the descending tetrachord, two capriccios based on composed bass-lines, and three ‘Passagallos’, all based on the descending tetrachord. It is very rare to find examples of these movement-types in a collection published as late as the 1680s, as they had fallen out of favour decades before, particularly the passamezzo. The music in Opus 7 is at times highly virtuosic. There is also an unusual amount of variety in each piece and extensive use of contrapuntal techniques. One technique employed is the use of simultaneous time signatures: the ‘Passagallo Terzo’ of Opus 7 is written with the two violin parts in C time and the bass part in 3/4 time, each phrase of the repeated chord pattern lasting twelve beats.