It’s salutary to be reminded that Tartini’s Sonate piccole
form part of ‘one of the largest integrated sets of sonatas for any
instrument’. Though he’s popularly associated with the Devil’s
Trill, and nocturnal dreams of hyper-virtuosity, Tartini was
also very much the theoretician, and his investigations into the harmonic
and mathematical structures of music are important pieces of investigative
scholarship.
He worked on the Sonate piccole for many years and they are
predicated on ‘nature imitation’ with true bass implications but without
the necessity for a written bass. Peter Sheppard-Skærved’s own critical
edition will be forthcoming soon – there is none other, apparently
- and it will be based on the manuscript held in the library of the
Basilica of S. Antonio in Padua. In his view there are 30 sonatas
in Tartini’s hand, not the previously estimated 26 and I assume that
all will be made available by Toccata.
The intrepid soloist also notes that he has gone for a close-up recording
quality, the better to heighten the dramatic harmonics and other effects
that Tartini envisaged. Sonatas 1 to 6 are full of many dramatic and
expressive movements. These range from the fanfare overture of No.1
with echo effects, through its Allegro, which originally
served as a finale, but is actually followed by a Gigue.
Tartini’s ability to explore remarkably forlorn harmonies is amply
audible in the Siciliana of No.2 which is followed by a more
military Allegro and a finale that is amply ‘affetuoso’ which,
though slow, bristles with technical demands. Tartini is effective
at calls to arms in these sonatas, as he also is when laying out the
music’s more interior landscape – of which the opening of No.4 is
an obvious case in point. The singing cantabile invocations prefigure
the elegant line of the French school yet to come, a line that ran
from Tartini to Kreutzer, Rode and Baillot.
Tartini is certainly capable of springing a surprise. Noteworthy amongst
these surprises is the unadorned simplicity of the quiet Grave
from the fourth sonata, which contrasts with the surrounding movements
which extol the virtues of folklore in their dialogues. The second
movement of No.5 explores the communicative wit of which Tartini was
a master as well as, more specifically, the birdsong that animates
some of the sonatas. The following Allegro assai is a triumph
of the songster’s art, sounding like a mid-eighteenth century children’s
song. Throughout these sonatas, indeed, effect and affect go hand
in hand.
The main question in terms of the recording is the sound. This, as
suggested, is very close and resinous. It’s what the soloist hopes
is a true ‘Tartini’ sound. Some will find it just too abrasive but
I certainly found it exciting, indeed at points combative.
Jonathan Woolf
see also review
by Byzantion
