Abstract
The sharp contrast between these two views of musical life in Rome during the early years of the eighteenth century cannot be accounted for by any changes that took place there between May 1705 and the early months of 1707, nor even by the way perceptions have altered during the three centuries that separate the two writers. Professor Marx goes on to speak of the oratorios, serenatas and secular cantatas that ‘employed new effects to transport audiences to a hitherto unknown state of sensual excitement … Listeners were enraptured not only by the voices of the Papal singers, but also by the grand sound of the large orchestras, the like of which had never been heard’. Scarlatti, on the other hand, was writing as an opera composer at a time when papal authority had placed a ban on all operatic performance, public or private, in Rome; the fact that circumstances had forced him to accept a subordinate post at the basilica of S Maria Maggiore, as well as his failure to secure a suitable position in Rome for his most gifted son, Domenico, also helps to account for the disgruntled tone of his letter to Prince Ferdinando. Taken together, therefore, the two quotations neatly summarize the situation that faced the musician in Rome during much of the period under discussion: difficulties as far as opera was concerned, but plenty of opportunities elsewhere.
Roma non ha tetto per accoglier 1a Musica, ehe ci vive mendica
(Alessandro Scarlatti, 1705)1
When Handel arrived in Rome at the beginning of 1707 he found a musical culture whose artistic level surpassed that of all other European capitals
(Hans Joachim Marx)2
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Bibliographical Note
M. Andrieux’s Daily Life in Papal Rome in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1968; originally in French as La vie quotidienne dans la Rome pontificale, Paris, 1962) lacks scholarly documentation, but it provides a lively picture of Roman society during the period and contains a useful bibliography. Andrieux’s account may be supplemented, by readers of Italian, by the fascinating Diario di Roma of Francesco Valesio, ed. G. Scano and G. Graglia (Milan, 1977–8); this covers the period 1700–42, except for a gap from 11 March 1711 to 23 December 1724 and smaller lacunae elsewhere.
Biographies of Queen Christina of Sweden are numerous, though many of them mix fact with fiction; among the more readable and reliable of recent books on her is G. Masson, Queen Christina (London, 1968).
Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili has been the subject of a detailed biography by L. Montai to, Un mecenate in Roma barocca (Florence, 1955), which draws extensively on the Doria-Pamphili archive in Rome but which must be read with caution as far as the information on music is concerned;
H. J. Marx’s ‘Die Giustificazioni delia Casa Pamphilj als musikgeschichtliche Quelle’, Studi musicali, xii (1983), 121–87, covering the years 1677–1709, forms an important appendage to Montalto’s book. Marysienka by K. Waliszewski (Paris, 1896; Eng. trans. Lady Mary Loyd, London, 1898) remains essential reading on Queen Maria Casimira of Poland, but it devotes little space to her years in Rome and none at all to her musical patronage.
For Rome’s other two important patrons of music, Cardinal Ottoboni and Prince Ruspoli, one must rely on articles in periodicals, notably, for the former, H. J. Marx, ‘Die Musik am Hofe Pietro Kardinal Ottobonis unter Arcangelo Corelli’, AnMc, no.5 (1968), 104–77, and, for the latter, U. Kirkendale, ‘The Ruspoli Documents on Handel’, JA MS, xx (1967), 222–74.
For information on the church’s prescriptions for sacred music, see R. F. Hayburn, Papal Legislation on Sacred Music, 95AD to 1977AD (Collegeville, MN, 1979).
For a survey of the music itself, G. Stefani’s Musica e religione nel Vitalia barocca (Palermo, 1975) may be recommended. The articles on Rome in the Enciclopedia dello spettacolo and Grove 0 contain much valuable information on Roman theatres and their repertories, and A. Cametti’s Il teatro di Tordinona poi di Apollo (Tivoli, 1938) is of fundamental importance. Roman opera of the period is not usually given much attention in general histories, but some idea of the operatic situation is conveyed in books on specific composers (e.g. Handel and the two Scarlattis); see also the literature mentioned in notes 4, 12 and 13 above. Information on the cantata da camera in Rome is similarly diffuse; a useful starting-point is provided by the article ‘Cantata’ in Grove 6 and its accompanying bibliography. Much information about the nativity cantatas performed annually at the Vatican is contained in G. Gianturco’s ‘“Cantate spirituali e morali”, with a Description of the Papal Sacred Cantata Tradition for Christmas’, ML, lxxiii (1992), 1–33,
H. J. Marx’s ‘Römische Weihnachtsoratorien aus der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts’, AMw, xlix (1992), 163–99.
For oratorio the standard text is now H. E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio; the period under discussion is covered in chapters 5 and 6 of volume i (Chapel Hill, 1977).
The serenata during the greater part of the period is expertly dealt with in T. E. Griffin’s doctoral dissertation, The Late Baroque Serenata in Rome and Naples (University of California, Los Angeles, 1983). A more recent volume touching on various aspects of music at Rome during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries is Händel e gli Scarlatti a Roma, ed. N. Pirrotta and A. Ziino, containing papers read at an international conference in Rome in June 1985.
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© 1993 Granada Group and Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Boyd, M. (1993). Rome: the Power of Patronage. In: Buelow, G.J. (eds) The Late Baroque Era. Man & Music. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11303-3_2
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