Italian Trio Sonata

This study of Italian instrumental ensemble music during the 17th century is based on the great majority of surviving primary sources. Most previous studies have tended to confine themselves to a fixed location of a single composer, rather than offering a correlated account of the genre in its entirety. This book provides comprehensive coverage of every major composer of Italian "trio" sonatas until Corelli and is intended as a standard work of reference. It also attempts to undermine the mythology surrounding the development of the free sonata acquired from successive generations of historians, eventually seeking to present Corelli's works, not as the inevitable culmination of the pre-history of the sonata, but as the product of the precise interaction of two regional traditions. The musical development is placed within a broad historical perspective examining such factors as performance and function and thus placing the sonata within its cultural setting.Table of ContentPart 1 Contexts and concepts: period, place and personalia; the instrumental ensemble; genre and function; the composer in society. Part 2 Regional developments: the "stil moderno" sonata; the Ducal courts; the central development; Emilia and the Romagna; Roma; the Northern regions; the Corellian sonata.