Rutini, Giovanni Marco (EN)

Rutini, Giovanni Marco, Giovanni Maria, Giovanni Placido, *25 April 1723 Florence, †22 December 1797 Florence, Italian composers. Between 1739 and 1744, he studied with L. Leo (composition), F.N. Fago (harpsichord) and V.A. Pagliarulo (violin) at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini in Naples, where he then worked as an assistant for several years. Between 1748 and 1757, he stayed in Prague, where he staged his first operas at G.B. Locatelli’s Nuovo Teatro and taught harpsichord to the German aristocracy. He probably travelled to Dresden in 1754 and to Berlin around 1756 with Locatelli’s ensemble. In 1757 he travelled to Saint Petersburg with Locatelli; at the court of Empress Elisabeth of Russia he produced several new operas, and served as conductor of Count P. B. Sheremet’yev’s orchestra, and taught harpsichord to the future Empress Catherine II. In 1761, Rutini returned to Florence, and in 1762 he became a member of the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna and completed his musical studies with G.B. Martini. He travelled extensively throughout Italy, staging his operas in Cremona and Bologna (1762–63), Venice (1763), Genoa, and Livorno (1764), among other places. Although the premieres of Rutini’s operas (Le contese domestiche, 1766 and L’amor per rigiro, 1773) were received with great acclaim in Florence, he was never offered a permanent position at the Tuscan court. In Modena, however, after staging L’olandese in Italia in 1769, Rutini was awarded the title of maestro di cappella of the ducal court. He continued to reside in Florence, where he presented his operas and oratorios and was a highly regarded teacher and co-founder of the Scuola Leopoldiana.

Rutini composed mainly opera and harpsichord music. As an opera composer, he was a representative of the Neapolitan school. His stage works have not yet been thoroughly investigated and remain in need of detailed scholarly study. Many of his works were staged repeatedly in various Italian cities, as well as in Prague, Saint Petersburg, Dresden, and Copenhagen. The opera I matrimoni in maschera is cited as an example of the composer’s skilful use of both buffo and serio styles, as well as his rich melodic inventiveness.

Rutini played a significant role in the development of the classical keyboard sonata and the transition from the harpsichord sonata to the piano sonata. Three developmental phases can be observed in this branch of his work. In Opp. 1 and 2, the galant style still predominates, the themes are short and ornamented, motivic work and repetitiveness dominate, and rhetorical figures from the opera repertoire are used. The sonatas from Op. 3–6, especially Op. 5, are generally considered as the peak of Rutini’s compositional oeuvre. Thanks to their clear, carefully balanced form, periodic structure, skilful use of expressive contrasts in the sonata-allegro forms and dramatic accents; some of the sonatas (e.g. Op. 5 No. 5, Op. 6 No. 5) are stylistically ahead of the early piano works of J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart and even Beethoven. Starting with the sonatas from Op. 7, Rutini abandoned his artistic aspirations in favour of simple, conventional works addressed mainly to musical dilettanti. These sonatas were probably a response to the needs of the Italian publishing market; the works from Op. 8 were particularly popular.

Rutini’s sonatas usually consist of two or three movements. In Opp. 7 and 9, he introduced the first with a short prelude. In addition to the sonata-allegro form, simple two-part, ABA, and rondo structures are also used in the first or second movement. The finale is most often a giga or minuet, exceptionally a variation (e.g. Op. 7 No. 6). Most parts are kept at moderate and fast tempos. Overall, a single key and simple harmony prevail throughout the entire piece.

Writings: (manuscript in Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, Bologna) – letters to G.B. Martini; French translation of part 1 of the F.W. Marpurg’s treatise Abhandlung von der Fuge… (1753) titled Traité de la fugue, manuscript

Literature: A. Della Gorte L’opera comica italiana nel ‘700, vol. 1, Bari 1923; F. Torrefranca Il primo maestro di W.A. Mozart (Giovanni Marco Rutini), “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XL, 1936; H. Illy Una rara opera XIX di Giovanni Marco Rutini, NRMI III, 1969; F. Meinero Le sonate di Giovanni Marco Rutini, dissertation from the University of Turin, 1975; G. Pestelli Mozart e Rutini, “Analecta Musicologica” XVIII, 1978; D. C. Sanders, The Keyboard Sonatas of Giustini, Paradisi and Rutini: Formal and Stylistic Innovation in Mid-eighteenth-century Italian Keyboard Music, Ann Arbor 1983; D.E. Freeman J.Ch. Bach and Early Classical Italian Masters, in: Eighteenth-Century Keyboard Music, ed. R.L. Marshall, New York 1994; C. Lombardi, G. Rutini: Father of Classical Sonata Procedures, together with Translations of His Letters and other Writings, s.l. 1997; J.W. Hill Florentine cembalo concertos in the Ricasoli Collection in: Music observed: Studies in memory of William C. Holmes, ed. C. Reardon, S. Parisi, F.A. D’Accone, L. Coral, Warren 2004.