Luogo e data di registrazione		Studio Lankwitz, Berlin (Germania) - settembre 1981
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Andreas Holschneider / Heinz Wildhagen
	Prima Edizione LP		Archiv - 2534 008 - (1 lp) - durata 54' 50" - (p) 1982 - Digitale
	Edizione "Collectio" CD		Archiv - 437 083-2 - (1 cd) - durata 54' 50" - (c) 1986 - DDD
	Note		Recording made during the BERLINER FESTWOCHEN 1981.

STEFFANI: CHAMBER DUETS The Italian style of duet now lacks much of the good qualities of piety and clarity mentioned abone, because of its fugal artificial and interwoven nature. However, these duets demand a real man and are a special delight to musically-educated ears, in the chamber as well as in the church (and formerly, in Steffani's time, also in the theatre), provided that accomplished and reliable singers can be found for them; of these we now have fewer than of such works themselves. In this kind of duet the aforesaid Steffani incomparably surpassed all other composers known to me and deserves to be taken as a model to this day; for such things do not easily grow old. Thus wrote Mattheson in Der vollkommene Capellmeister in 1739. His opinion reflects that of his contemporaries and has been echoed by every later writer on the subject. In the 18th century Steffani’s chamber duets for two voices and continuo circulated throughout Europe in countless manuscript copies and were performed in public and in private, on stage and at court. Like the trio sonatas of Corelli (their instrumental counterparts), they played a leading role in the formation and dissemination of the late Baroque Italian style and made a profound impression on all who knew them. They influenced such composers as Keiser, Bononcini, Handel and Telemann and were praised by Hawkins, Burney and Padre Martini. They were first examined in ‘recent’ times by Friedrich Chrysander in preparation for his study of Handel. Steffani was clearly one of the foremost Italian composers of his time. Born at Castelfranco (Veneto) in 1654, he was educated first at Padua, then at Munich, where he was taken at the age of 13 by the Elector Ferdinand Maria. After several years of organ and composition lessons with the court organist, Johann Kaspar Kerll, he went to Rome in 1672 for further instruction in composition from Ercole Bernabei, director of music at the Cappella Giulia. His studies were crowned by the publication of his Psalmodia vespertina in 1674, after which he returned to Munich and became court organist and (in 1681) Director of Chamber Music - in which capacity he composed motets and operas, as well as chamber duets. In 1688 he moved to Hanover as ‘Kapellmeister’ of Duke Ernst August’s new Italian opera, for which he composed at least six three-act works in as many years. At the same time, however, he became increasingly involved in diplomatic activities. By 1696 he was Hanoverian ‘envoy extraordinary’ to the Bavarian court at Brussels, and for Carnival that year he was replaced as ‘Kapellmeistef by Pietro Torri, chapelmaster of the same court. He did compose a little more music before his death at Frankfurt in 1728, but the remainder of his life was devoted largely to political and ecclesiastical affairs in northern Germany, where he rose to high office. Steffani wrote over 80 duets. Few of them can be precisely dated, and most of these are relatively late works. Five can be shown by reference to letters to have been composed at Brussels in 1698-1700 for Sophie Charlotte, the Hanoverian princess who had become Electress of Brandenburg. Most of the others were evidently written by the autumn of 1702, when he began to revise them and prepare a new complete collection; but at least one duet (possibly two or three) was composed some ten years later. The contrapuntal nature mentioned by Mattheson is particularly apparent in the later duets, which are represented on this record by Placidissime catene (Brussels, 1699) and by M'hai da piangere un dì and E perchè non m’uccidete - both of which are revisions of earlier settings. Such duets display an effortless mastery of imitative counterpoint (using real and tonal answers, at various pitches), double (invertible) counterpoint, false entries on the ‘head’ of the subject, and strettos - which often involve a series of entries at ever-decreasing intervals. They lack the modulatory or sequential episodes of late Baroque instrumental fugues, perhaps because it is difhcult to split a vocal subject (a setting of words) into a number of separate motives; but a subject occasionally returns after lengthy absence, like a middle or final entry, with astonishing effect. There is much else to admire, apart from fugal counterpoint. The duets also employ homophonic and antiphonal textures, and passages dominated by pedals. The essential point, however, is that all available textures are flexibly deployed so as to reinforce the structure and meaning of the words in the most telling possible manner. Steffani’s sensitivity to the texts is evident in every aspect of his style, but it is probably most apparent in his predilection for suspensions, in the bass as well as in the voices, and in his control of harmonic rhythm. The kinds of suspensions he uses, the speed with which they follow one another and the period for which he sometimes dares to hold them are all remarkable, as is his willingness occasionally to halt the harmonic motion altogether in order to focus attention on the sheer sound of the voices and continuo (cf. Libertà! Libertà! and Già tu parti). He clearly possessed a wonderfully sensitive ear - and the intelligence to use for expressive purposes the effects that he conceived. Only one of his duets is known to date from his Munich years, but it seems likely that he composed them from the start of his career. Tu m'aspettasti al mare is based on a poem set as a solo cantata by Cesti, who died in 1669, while No, no, no, non voglio se devo amare draws on the words and music of a duet by Cossoni that was published between 1671 and 1679. Steffani may have come across both works in Italy in the 1670s. His earlier duets are characterized by somewhat looser contrapuntal textures and a correspondingly greater emphasis on lyrical melody and movements for solo voice (cf. Io voglio provar). They frequently employ the triple and compound metres of the mid-seicento (17th-century) aria and the intricate formal schemes of the contemporary solo cantata. Taken as a whole, Steffani’s duets may be said to represent a cross between the solo cantata and the trio sonata. The present recording illustrates the formal as well as the stylistic range of his output in the genre and affords an insight into the development of Italian music in general during a period when it came to dominate much of Europe. Colin Timms