By all accounts Pietro Gnocchi was a remarkable man. He was born in
Brescia and spent most of his life there, after having studied in Venice and
having travelled extensively through Europe. This was all pretty common. Far
less common were his interests besides music. He spent much time writing
learned books about epigraphy, geography and ancient history. Among his
works in the latter department - which were never published - was a
25-volume history of Greek colonies in the East. He also wrote a treatise on
Brescian memorial tablets.
This didn't prevent him from being active as a musician. In 1723 he
became
maestro di cappella of Brescia Cathedral. His attempt to
become also the cathedral's organist was unsuccessful. He tried again
in 1762, and from that year until his death he held both positions. His
oeuvre consists mainly of sacred vocal music and includes many masses and
Requiems, various sets of Vesper music for the entire church year, and much
else. None of this was ever published in his lifetime. Apparently the
publication of a series of twelve volumes was planned, but only a title page
and dedication are known. His interest in geography left its mark in the
names of some of his works, like a
Missa Europa or
Missa
Africa, and a
Magnificat Il capo di buona speranza (Cape of
Good Hope).
In addition to his sacred music he composed a small number of canzonettas
as well as a few instrumental works. The number of the latter is rather
small: six concertos in four and six concertos in six parts, plus fifteen
trio sonatas. The present disc includes the six four-part concertos and one
of the trio sonatas. The concertos have the texture of concerti grossi; the
concertino group consists of two violins, one viola and occasionally an
obbligato cello. In addition there are two violin parts which have the role
of
ripieno instruments. One could think that the instrumental works
in some way reflect the scientific mind of their composer. All these
concertos follow strictly the model of Corelli's
sonata da
chiesa. They are in four movements in the same order: slow - fast -
slow - fast. Martin Mezger, in his liner-notes, states that "the entire
collection is marked by an almost rigid homogeneity: Gnocchi limits himself
to time signatures of three or four crotchets, as well as
alla
breve metres; with the exception of the third concerto, all the
movements of each concerto stay in the tonic key (...); the fast movements
are mainly polyphonic (...). In contrast to most composers of concertos of
his time, Gnocchi is not concerned with the categories of variety, diversity
and transformation." He adds that this doesn't indicate that
these concertos are "dry musical templates" which speaks for the
composer's "genius".
That may be true and I don't question the quality of these
concertos. In fact, they have been able to correct my rather negative
assessment of his oeuvre after having listened to a disc with some of his
sacred works. In my
review I already took into consideration that this was partly
due to the performance. I am much more positive about these concertos. Even
so, their similarity make me recommend not to listen to this entire disc at
a stretch. I did, and I found it not always easy to keep my concentration.
There is little which spurs the imagination. However, it is all very well
written and excellently played by the Main-Barockorchester Frankfurt. These
concertos should certainly be included in programmes of 18th-century
instrumental music, but for a complete disc they probably have just too
little variety.
That said, I am certainly happy with this disc and I hope that some time a
really good recording of vocal works will be released. After all, the
composition of sacred music was the heart of Gnocchi's musical
activities.
Johan van Veen
www.musica-dei-donum.org
twitter.com/johanvanveen
