The Sonate auf Concertenart: A Postmodern Invention? David ...

Sonate auf Concertenart, p. 29
seems to be true of Telemann's 1734 Concerts and, in general, of the trios and quartets mentioned
above: the occasional parallels to certifiably orchestral music are so few and far between that they
seem hardly sufficient to account for a generic assignment. Similar strictures apply to Telemann's
Concerto alla polonese for two violins, viola, and continuo TWV 43:G7, in which the occasional
passages in octaves--not to mention ritornellos that enter in surprise keys without transition--seem
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to reflect imitation of vernacular improvised music-making, not Italian orchestral music. Here
the title, if it has any significance at all, might be ironic or satirical.
Among other "markers" proposed as concerto identifiers are several that might more
logically be connected to vocal music. Apart from the ritornello itself, these include instrumental
imitations of recitative and aria styles. Instrumental recitative occurs famously in the slow
movement of Vivaldi's "Grosso Mogul" Concerto RV 208 (transcribed by Bach as BWV 594 and
seemingly imitated by him in the Chromatic Fantasia BWV 903/1). But it also occurs in Francesco
Antonio Bonporti's Invenzioni da camera for violin and continuo (Op. 10, Bologna, 1712), as
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well as in a flute sonata now considered an early work of Handel. Modern commentators have
even seen imitations of recitative in much older works, including keyboard pieces by Frescobaldi
and Kuhnau and chamber sonatas of Buxtehude. Hence there is little reason for associating
recitative-like features in such works as the sonata a quattro TWV 43:F1 or the concerto TWV
43:D4 specifically with the Italian concerto style. If not directly inspired by the actual vocal form,
these works might well reflect an already well-established tradition of instrumental recitative.
If the vocal derivation of these quasi-recitative movements is self-evident, the same must
hold for aria-like movements in instrumental works. To be sure, as soon as instrumental
composers began to imitate vocal gestures, these would have become part of the vocabulary of
instrumental music as well. For example, it is easy to imagine a vocal inspiration for the aria-like
adagios of certain Vivaldi concertos in which the soloist is accompanied by continuo alone (or by
homophonic ripieno parts). In one such work, a Concerto in D for flute, violin, and continuo
attributed to Vivaldi as RV 84, the singing character of the principal part is made explicit by the
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word cantabile--a term also found in the Graun trio illustrated above (ex. 1). But German
composers might have composed similar movements as much in emulation of Vivaldi's concertos
as in direct imitation of vocal writing. Thus florid solos in the third movement (Largo) of
Telemann's Concert no. 1 of 1734 are framed by opening and closing passages for the tutti; this
43:A9 (illustrated in ex. 6 below), also entitled "Concerto" and in the same format, lacks even
these possible concerto "markers."
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Seen in Dl Mus. ms. 2392-Q-2; two modern editions were unavailable.
HWV 58; see Oleskiewicz, "Quantz and the Flute at Dresden," 475-6.
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In some cases, the word cantabile may have served simply to indicate to the player the
leading character of his part, as when Bach used the same indication in the last movement of the
Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. RV 84 is anonymous in its only source, a Dresden manuscript copy;
I am grateful to Mary Oleskiewicz for the information that its wrapper, dating from the later
eighteenth century, groups it with items attributed to Vivaldi.