| Summary: | This dissertation presents an overview of the situation of the printed string quartet output in London in the years between 1765 (year of publication of Gaetano Latilla's set) and 1790 (year of publication of last set of quartets by Felice Giardini). Between these years the London publishers printed about one hundred string quartets by musicians operating within or at the margins of the King's Theatre environment. Many of them were opera composers, several were prominent violinists and some of them were singers, as in the case of Venanzio Rauzzini (1746-1810), who published two set of six string quartets. I consider Rauzzini's quartets as highly representative of the whole Italian output for their structure, their destination, their publication history and their simple, light and domestic sensibility. While focusing on Rauzzini's quartets, I take into consideration the publishing market in London and its relations with the continental production, with particular reference to the local Italian publishing industry in the main centres of Venice and Florence I describe how the vibrant London market stimulated the establishment of a network of Italian publishing companies, aimed at satisfying the requests of the local aristocracy and of the foreigners who were visiting Italy during their Grand Tour, eager to get acquainted with everything that represented Italy in a number of artistic expressions. Italian string quartet production has suffered neglect in the modern musicological world, due to the prominence of the Austro-German tradition represented by Haydn and his pupil Pleyel, and later on by Mozart and Beethoven. The Italian output, often considered by scholars as a byproduct of the opera system and a less fortunate sibling of its transalpine counterpart, was indeed a distinct genre, with specific features that were consciously cultivated by the Italian composers who were, in some cases, openly critical towards the 'new wave' of German compositions.
|
|---|
