Cellofun Repertoire Library: Italy
Italian music seems to perfectly reflect its language, culture, weather and even its cuisine. In the Italian language, the alternation between highly articulated consonants and ultra-smooth vowels finds its mirror image not only in the frequent alternation between crisp spiccato and creamy legato in Italian music but also in Italian cuisine. In the Italian kitchen, crunchy is as highly appreciated as creamy, but mushy and/or amorphous (typical characteristics of British pronunciation and cuisine) are absolutely despised. The rhythmical variety, animated body language and excitable rise and fall of the phrases, often convert even the most mundane Italian conversations into intense sensory experiences somewhere between theatre, music and dance.
With its clear skies, bright sunshine, vivid colours, and communicative, emotive, playful, warm, intense, ebullient, sensual people, how could Italy not have been one of the cradles of Western music ?? But beware: between the delights of “opera buffa” (comic opera) in which we never stop smiling, and the intense drama of “opera séria” (tragic) in which everybody dies a horrible death, there is only a very narrow safety zone in which those of us with a more northerly approach to life can take refuge. Italian music, like Italian people, is rarely dry and intellectual and to play it well it helps if we can become, albeit temporarily, Italian !
ITALIAN BAROQUE STRING MUSIC: PLAY 16TH NOTES LONG AND 8TH NOTES SHORT
In Italian Baroque music, we can very often apply the general principle of “play the 16th notes long and the 8th notes short” (for non-slurred notes). The ideal place in the bow for the 16th notes (long) is in the middle or upper half while the short 8th notes will often want to be in the lower half. The Vivaldi cello sonatas and concertos provide us with numerous examples in which we can use this type of articulation:
This is very much a “string-instrument” articulation. Doing the opposite (playing the 16th notes short and the 8th notes long) makes the 16th notes sound more percussive as if they were played on a keyboard (harpsichord) and gives a decidedly Germanic character to the music.
Clicking on the links below, you can find cellofun editions of music composed by the following Italian composers: