Galuppi, Baldassare (EN)

Galuppi Baldassare, known as Il Buranello, *18 October 1706 Burano (near Venice), †3 January 1785 Venice, Italian composer. He initially studied music with his father, a barber by profession, but occasionally playing the violin in theater orchestras. He made his debut as a composer in 1722 with the opera La fede nell’incostanza ossia Gli amici rivali, but it was not a success. At the urging of B. Marcello, he began studying composition and harpsichord with A. Lotti. In 1726, he became harpsichordist at the Teatro della Pergola in Florence. He began his actual opera career at the turn of 1728 and 1729, writing, in collaboration with another pupil of Lotti, G.B. Pescetti, the opera Gl’odi delusi dal sangue, staged at the Teatro di S. Angelo in Venice, and in 1729 the opera Dorinda, presented at the Teatro di S. Samuele, which brought him fame. In the 1730s, he mostly adapted works by other composers to the tastes of Venetian audiences, adding his own arias to the pasticcios presented there. Gradually, his own arias began to attract more and more attention from listeners. In 1740, he became maestro di musica at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti in Venice and held this position until 1751. In the 1740s, he composed mainly opere serie. Among the more interesting dramatic works from this period are: Argenide (1733), L’ambizione depressa (1733), Tamiri (1734), and Elisa regina di Tiro (1736). In 1738, the composer received a commission to compose an opera for the royal theater in Turin. In 1740, the composer’s first work written in collaboration with the playwright C. Goldoni was created. It was the opera seria Gustavo Primo Re di Svezia, followed a year later by Oronte re de’Sciti, which was a significant success. Between 1741 and 1743, Galuppi stayed in London; his first two opere serie staged at the King’s Theatre did not achieve the expected success, but the third, Enrico, in which Ch. Burney discovered many “pleasant and elegant moments,” won over the London audience for a long time and had a significant impact on English music of that period. In 1743, Galuppi returned to Venice, where he wrote several operas to librettos by Metastasio, including Olimpiade, Semiramide riconosciuta, Artaserse, L’eroe cinese, Siroe, Ezio, and Il re pastore. In a letter to Farinelli, however, the poet himself spoke unfavorably of Galuppi’s music, accusing him of not caring about the proper arrangement of the words. In 1748, he became deputy bandmaster, and in 1762, the bandmaster at the church of S. Marco. At the end of the 1740s, he resumed his interrupted collaboration with Goldoni. It was precisely the opere buffe written to his texts, especially L’Arcadia in Brenta, Arcifanfano re dei matti (1749), Il mondo della luna (1750), Il mondo alla roversa (1750), and Il filosofo di campagna (1754), brought him European fame. In 1765–68, at the invitation of Catherine II, he worked at the court in St. Petersburg, where D. Bortnianski was his student at the time. In St. Petersburg, Galuppi wrote two occasional cantatas, La virtù liberata (1765) and La pace fra la Virtù e la Bellezza (1766), the opera seria Ifigenia in Tauride (1768), as well as a cycle of 15 compositions for the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1768, he returned to Venice, took up the position of bandmaster at St. Mark’s Basilica, and also became maestro di coro at the Ospedale degli Incurabili. After 1773, he composed mainly sacred music (a total of about 200 compositions): arrangements of psalms, antiphons, a new version of the oratorio Jahel from 1747, masses and mass parts, motets, and oratorios. His dramatic work culminated in the sacred cantata Il ritorno di Tobia (Venice, 1782). Throughout his life, he also wrote harpsichord sonatas (over 120 in total, most of them unpublished) and concertos for this instrument. Galuppi’s last composition was a Christmas Mass (1784), which he was unable to conduct due to illness. According to Ch. Burney, Galuppi was an open man with a great sense of humor, with whom conversation was a great pleasure. According to witnesses, his funeral took the form of a “grand spectacle.” The composer’s son Antonio wrote opera librettos.

Galuppi was an extremely popular composer of opere serie and opere buffe in the mid-18th century. During this period, the number of his opere serie exceeded the number of comic operas, but in retrospect, the most important place is occupied by opere buffe written to texts by C. Goldoni. According to the composer, good music consisted of “charm, expressiveness, and good modulation.” Galuppi’s style is therefore characterized by charming melodies, symmetrical, built of short 2- or 4-measure phrases, characterized by diatonic harmony and lively rhythm. In addition to the buffa parts in Galuppi’s operas, there are also serie and semiserie parts, which contribute to greater diversity not only in the dramatic action, but also in the vocal style. In his early opere buffe, Galuppi employed only the then widely prevalent da capo aria form (ABA) or the expanded da capo aria (AABAA, ABCAB). After 1755, the grand aria da capo completely disappeared from his operas, replaced by a simple two-part aria, often with changes in tempo and meter (AA, ABA1B1, ABCB1). In Il filosofo di campagna, we find chain finale for the first time, which would become an important element of the genre. In Galuppi’s works, they consist of five or six separate parts with contrasting keys, tempos, and meters. Galuppi’s opere serie are mostly solo operas. The exception is Ifigenia in Tauride, composed in St. Petersburg, which, under the influence of French opera, features independent instrumental and dance parts, as well as choral parts.

In his choral concerts, composed for the Orthodox Church to Russian texts, Galuppi combined elements of Russian music with Italian counterpoint, creating a new style that was imitated in similar works by his successors at the tsar’s court, T. Traetta and G. Sarti. Galuppi was one of the most important precursors of the classical sonata. His harpsichord sonatas, dominated by 2- and 3-part works, have, on the one hand, expressive and quite varied themes, and on the other, still contain elements of the sonata da chiesa (the use of polyphonic means, beginning the work with a slow movement, 2-part form with repetitions). His sacred works, which have been the least studied, are characterized, depending on the occasion of their creation and place of performance, by the use of stile antico (mainly for S. Marco) or theatrical style (for girls’ ospedali ensembles).

The 20th century saw a gradual renaissance of Galuppi’s music. A number of his operas were performed and many instrumental works were published. In Poland, Galuppi’s operas were performed only during the Stanisław period (the reign of Stanisław August Poniatowski). In 1766, the Italian opera company in Warsaw had La calamità de’cuori, Il filosofo di campagna, Il marchese villano, and Le nozze di Dorina in its repertoire, and in 1774 L’amante di tutte. In 1783, Polish actors staged Bałamuta kobiet (trans. of L’amante di tutte) in Warsaw.

Literature: A. Wotquenne Baldassare Galuppi. Étude bibliographique sur ses oeuvres dramatiques, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” VI, 1899, also Brussels 1902; F. Piovano Baldassare Galuppi. Note bio-bibliografiche, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XIII, XIV, XV, 1906, 1907, 1908; F. Torrefranca Per un catalogo tematico delle sonate per cembalo di Baldassare Galuppi, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XVI, 1909; F. Torrefranca Le sonate per cembalo del Buranello, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XVIII, XIX, 1911, 1912; Ch. van den Borren Contribution au catalogue thématique des sonates de Galuppi, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XXX, 1923; F. Raabe Galuppi als Instrumentalkomponist, Munich 1929 (thesis, contains a list of Galuppi’s sonatas); G. Bernardi Il mondo alla roversa, dramma bernesco di Baldassare Galuppi, “Musica d’oggi” VI, 1934; W. Bollert Tre opere di Galuppi, Haydn e Paisiello sul Mondo della luna di Goldoni, “Musica d’oggi” IX, 1939; A. Della Corte Baldassare Galuppi. Profilo critico, “Quaderni dell’Accademia Chigiana” XVIII, Siena 1948; Baldassare Galuppi detto „Il Buranello” (1706–1785). Note e documenti raccolti in occasione della settimana celebrativa, Siena 1948; A.L. Chiuminatto The Liturgical Works of Baldassare Galuppi, Northwestern 1959 (thesis); D.E. Pullmann A Catalogue of the Keyboard Sonatas of Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785), Washington 1972 (thesis); F. Piva Contributi alla conoscenza della figura e dell’opera di Baldassare Galuppi detto „Il Buranello”, «Rassegna di studi musicali» I, 1974; D. Heartz Hasse, Galuppi and Metastasio, in: Venezia e il melodramma nel Settecento, Venice 1975; D. Heartz Hasse, Galuppi and Metastasio, in: Venezia e il melodramma nel Settecento, I, Venice 1978; D. Heartz Vis comica: Goldoni, Galuppi and „L’Arcadia in Brenta”, M.F. Robinson Three versions of Goldoni’s „Il filosofo di campagna”, in: Venezia e il melodramma nel Settecento, II, Venice 1981; M.F. Robinson Three versions of Goldoni’s „Il filosofo di campagna”, ibid.; D. Heartz, The creation of the buffo finale in Italian opera, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association”, CIV, 1977–78; R. Wiesend, Il giovane Galuppi e l’opera: materiali per gli anni 1722–1741, “Nuova Riv. musicale italiana”, XVII, 1983; R. Wiesend Studien zur opera seria von Baldassare Galuppi, Tutzing 1984; Galuppiana 1985. Studi e ricerche. Atti del convegno internazionale (Venezia, 28–30 ottobre 1985), eds. M. T. Murano, R. Rossi, Firenze 1986; G. di Mauro A stylistic analysis of selected keyboard sonatas by Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785), unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Miami, 1989; P. Cahalan The Magnificats of Baldassare Galuppi, „The Choral Journal”, 33, 1992; D. Molino Sei sonate inedite di Baldassare Galuppi, “Studi musicali”, 2, 1994; D. Heartz Music in European Capitals. The Galant Style 1720-1780, New York 2003.