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Reprint der Erstausgabe von Bisel Classics durch den Verlag

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© 2022 Bisel Classics

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Herstellung und Verlag: BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt

ISBN: 978-3-7543-8876-1

Contents / Inhalt

Preface

The provenance of the only known extant manuscript of the “Vitali Chaconne” held in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden, has been hotly debated ever since Ferdinand David made the seminal arrangement of the work which introduced it to the world and gave it its baptismal name: ‘Ciaconna’. For a long time the work was thought to be a hoax piece, written by David and passed off as the work of a venerable master. With the manuscript now available in the public domain we know this to be untrue and there are strong textual reasons that suggest Tomaso Vitali was not the composer either... or at least, not the only composer. Perhaps the chief exponent of this view was the German musicologist and “chaconne expert”, Wolfgang Reich.

Reich argued that the Dresden manuscript was a composite document with at least four individuals involved in the process of preparation identified in his study: the composer or the owner of the source (Vitalino), an anonymous composer (of the violin part), the copyist and the archivist. For reasons unknown, Reich chose to omit the author of the musica ficta and the other corrective annotations in the ms. Although this editor may have been a modern contributor to the ms. there is also the possibility the annotations were added during the first stages of preparation. This omission aside, each of these individuals contributed something to the work and Reich frames his analysisi thus:

  1. The writer of the only existing source (Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Dresden, Mus. 2037-R-1) is identifiable from his handwriting as an otherwise reliable copyist of the Electoral chapel whose work can be seen in a number of other copies. The manuscript must have been made between 1710 and 1730 but contains strong inconsistencies. ii
  2. The bitonal setting of d#-min. in the violin against the g-min. of the bass in mm.150-157 is held as incompatible with contemporary practices. Reich regards this setting as an “obvious mistake” with treble and bass mutually exclusive from one another (in this passage at least) and taking an altogether separate example, supports this view by referring to the “fino alsegno” in m.41 as “pointless” in this context.
  3. The entry “Del Signor Vitalino” on the cover of the manuscript is inconclusive. Taken from the score by the archivist around 1750 when the music collection was uniformly labelled.
  4. “Parte del Tomaso Vitalino” on top of the first page of music means the “part of Tomaso Vitalino” and this refers not to the composer but to the owner of the source for the transcript. Reich adds that there was no musician in the Dresden court orchestra known by the name of Vitalino and the score is not a part (parte), but a score (partita).iii

From these premises, Reich postulates:

a) The composition that led to the Dresden manuscript, was a single part described as the “Parte del Tomaso Vitalino”.

b) This single part was probably the bass melody and its figuration.

c) The part is presumed to have been handed by its owner (Vitalino) directly to the composer of our version, because at an intermediate copy Vitalino would have noticed its errors and amended it as required.

In conclusion:

d) It is conceivable that the violin part was freely composed without first becoming fully accustomed to the transpositions in the bass. The mismatched parts were then given to a copyist in order to produce a cleaner copy. The copyist copied the parts faithfully without correction or omission and this is the version that has been handed down to us.

This conclusion disregards the corrections and amendments offered by an unmentioned unknown hand, since Reich was concerned only with the composition of two layers of text and the process which explained how as separate entities, they‘Dresden Chaconne’.“Vitali Chaconne”