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Giovanni Battista Somis
Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, Opus 3
Edited by Glenn Burdette
| B 93 |
ISBN 0-89579-422-5 |
(1998) xii+58 pp. |
$36.00 |
| | ISBN 978-0-89579-422-2
(13-digit) |
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| B 93P |
Parts set |
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$22.00 |
Giovanni Battista Somis (1686-1763), born into a family
renowned for its service to the Savoyard court, became famous as a violinist,
teacher, and composer. Appointed to the court orchestra at age nine, Somis
was sent to Rome in 1703, where he studied with Corelli for about three
years. Somis's earliest violin sonatas (Opus 1 through 3, ca. 1717-25)
are among the first of that genre in three movements and reflect his training
with Corelli and the style galant indifference towards counterpoint.
Lyrical melodies over walking basses arrive at frequent but irregularly
spaced cadences. Movements are exclusively in the tonic key and arranged
slow-fast-fast, with the weight on the middle movement, a monothematic
rounded binary form. However, contrasting elements, derived ultimately
from the fragmentary nature of Somis's themes, are always prominent. Some
of these movements have rudimentary recapitulations, where harmonic and
melodic facets seldom coincide; Somis used sequence as a developmental
technique. Conceivably composed as early as 1717, Opus 3 survives in a
manuscript copied in Turin and dated 1725.
Music Sample
Parts
vn.; b.c.
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