Toccata of Galuppi’s, A. (Men and Women, 1855.) Baldassare Galuppi (1706-85) was a celebrated Italian composer, who was born in 1706 near Venice. His father was a barber with a taste for music, and he taught his son sufficient of the elements of music to enable him to enter the Conservatorio degli Incurabile, where Lotti was a teacher. He produced an opera at the age of sixteen, but it was a failure; seven years after, however, he produced a comic opera Dorinda, which was a great success. The young composer’s great abilities were now everywhere recognised, and his fame assured. He was a most industrious writer, and left no less than seventy operas; which, however, have not survived to our time. Galuppi resided and worked in London from 1741 to 1744. He went to Russia, where he lived at the court of the Empress Catherine II. (at whose invitation he went) in great honour, and did much for the improvement of musical taste in that country. In 1768 he left Russia, and became organist of St. Mark’s, Venice. He died in 1785, and left fifty thousand lire to the poor of that city. His best comic opera is his Il Mondo della Luna. A Toccata is a “Touch-piece,” a prelude or overture. “It does but touch its theme rapidly, even superficially, for the most part; so that the interpolation of solemn chords and emotional phrases, inconsistent with its traditional character, may naturally, by force of contrast, lead to some suggestion or recognition of the many irregularities of life” (Mrs. Alexander Ireland). In the admirable paper on this poem written by Mrs. Alexander Ireland for the Browning Society, she continues: “A Toccata of Galuppi’s touches on deep subjects with a mere feather-touch of light and capricious suggestiveness, interwoven with the graver mood, with the heart-searching questionings of man’s deep nature and mysterious spirit. The Toccata as a form of composition is not the measured, deliberate working-out of some central musical thought, as is the Sonata or sound-piece, where the trained ear can follow out the whole process to its delightful and orderly consummation, where the student marks the introduction and development of the subject, its extension, through various forms, and its whole sequence of movement and meaning, to its glorious rounding-off and culmination, spiritually noting each stage of the climbing structure and acknowledging its perfection with the inward silent verdict, ‘It is well.’ The Toccata, in its early and pure form, possessed no decided subject, made such by repetition, but bore rather the form of a capricious Improvisation or “Impromptu.” It was a very flowing movement, in notes of equal length, and a homophonous character, the earliest examples of any importance being those by Gabrieli (1557-1613), and those by Merulo (1533-1604); while Galuppi, who was born in 1706 and died in 1785, produced a further advanced development of this particular form of musical composition, with chords freely introduced and other important innovations.” Vernon Lee, in her Studies of the Eighteenth Century in Italy (III. “The Musical Life”) says of the Venetian, Baldassare Galuppi, surnamed Buranello, that he was “an immensely prolific composer, and abounded in melody, tender, pathetic and brilliant, which in its extreme simplicity and slightness occasionally rose to the highest beauty.... He defined the requisites of his art to Burney in very moderate terms: ‘Chiarezza, vaghezza, e buona modulazione’—clearness, beauty, and good modulation, without troubling himself much about any others.... Galuppi was a model of the respectable, modest artist, living quietly on a moderate fortune, busy with his art and the education of his numerous children, beloved and revered by his fellow-artists; and when some fifteen years later [than 1770] he died, honoured by them with a splendid funeral, at which all the Venetian musicians performed; the great Pacchiarotti writing to Burney that he had sung with much devotion to obtain a rest for Buranello’s (Galuppi’s) soul” (p. 101). In a note Vernon Lee adds: “Mr. Browning’s fine poem, ‘A Toccata of Galuppi’s,’ has made at least his name familiar to many English readers.” Ritter, in his History of Music (p. 245), has a concise but expressive notice of Galuppi. “Balthasar Galuppi, called Buranello (1706-85), a pupil of Lotti, also composed many comic operas. The main features of his operas are melodic elegance and lively and spirited comic forms; but they are rather thin and weak in their execution. He was a great favourite during his lifetime.” The poem deals with two classes of human beings—the mere pleasure-takers with their balls and masks (Stanza iv.), and the scientists (Stanza xiii.) with their research and their ’ologies. The Venetians—who seemed to the poet merely born to blow and droop, who lived frivolous lives of gaiety and love-making—lived lives which came to nothing, and did deeds better left undone—heard the music which dreamily told them they must die, but went on with their kissing and their dancing till death took them where they never see the sun. The other class, immersed in the passion for knowledge, the class which despises the vanities and frivolities of the butterfly’s life, and consecrates itself to science, not the less surely dissipates its energies and misses the true end of life if it has nothing higher to live for than “physics and geology.”
Notes.—ii., St. Mark’s. The great cathedral of Venice, named after St. Mark, because it is said that the body of that Evangelist was brought to Venice and enshrined there. “where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings”: the Doge was the chief magistrate of Venice when it was a republic. “The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic was instituted in 1174 by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from off his own finger in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet at Istria over Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the Pope’s quarrel. When his Holiness gave the ring, he desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea annually, in commemoration of the event” (Dr. Brewer). iii., “the sea’s the street there”: there are neither horses nor carriages in Venice; you go everywhere by gondola—to church, to theatre, to market; your gondola meets you at the railway station; in a word, the sea is the street. Shylock’s Bridge: they show you Shylock’s house in the old market place by the Rialto Bridge. vi., clavichord, a keyed and stringed instrument, not now in use, being superseded by the pianoforte. viii., dominant’s persistence. The dominant in music is the name given to the fifth note of the scale of any key, counting upwards. The dominant plays a most important part in cadences, in which it is indispensable that the key should be strongly marked (Grove). “dear dead women”: the ladies of Venice are celebrated for their beauty. An article in Poet Lore, October 1890, p. 546, thus explains the technical musical allusions in A Toccata of Galuppi’s. These are all to be found in the seventh, eighth, and ninth verses. “The lesser thirds are, of course, minor thirds, and are of common occurrence; but the diminished sixth is an interval rarely used. So rare is it, that I have seen it stated by good authorities that it is never used harmonically. Ordinarily a diminished sixth (seven semitones), exactly the same interval as a perfect fifth, instead of giving a plaintive, mournful, or minor impression, would suggest a feeling of rest and satisfaction. As I have said, however, there is one way in which it can be used—as a suspension, in which the root of the chord on the lowered super-tonic of the scale is suspended from above into the chord with added seventh on the super-tonic, making a diminished sixth between the root of the first and the third of the second chord. The effect of this progression is most dismal, and possibly Browning had it in mind, though it is doubtful almost to certainty if Galuppi knew anything of it. Whether it be an anachronism or not, or whether it is used in a scientifically accurate way or not, the figure is true enough poetically, for a diminished interval—namely, something less than normal—would naturally suggest an effect of sadness. Suspensions, as may already have been guessed by the preceding example, are notes which are held over from one chord into another, and must be made according to certain musical rules as strict as the laws of the Medes and Persians. This holding over of a note always produces a dissonance, and must be followed by a concord,—in other words, a solution. Sevenths are very important dissonances in music, and a commiserating seventh is most likely the variety called a minor seventh. Being a somewhat less mournful interval than the lesser thirds and the diminished sixths, whether real or imaginary, yet not so final as ‘those solutions’ which seem to put an end to all uncertainty, and therefore to life, they arouse in the listeners to Galuppi’s playing a hope that life may last, although in a sort of dissonantal, Wagnerian fashion. The ‘commiserating sevenths’ are closely connected with the ‘dominant’s persistence’ in the next verse:—
‘Hark! the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to:
So an octave struck the answer.’
The dominant chord in music is the chord written on the fifth degree of the scale, and it almost always has a seventh added to it, and in a large percentage of cases is followed by the tonic, the chord on the first degree of the scale. Now, in fugue form a theme is repeated in the dominant key, the latter being called the answer. After further contrapuntal wanderings of the theme, the fugue comes to what is called an episode, after which the theme is presented first, in the dominant. ‘Hark! the dominant’s persistence’ alludes to this musical fact; but, according to rule, this dominant must be answered in the tonic an octave above the first presentation of the theme; and ‘so an octave struck the answer.’ Thus the inexorable solution comes in after the dominant’s persistence. Although life seemed possible with commiserating sevenths, the tonic, a resistless fate, strikes the answer that all must end—an answer which the frivolous people of Venice failed to perceive, and went on with their kissing. The notion of the tonic key as a relentless fate seems to suit well with the formal music of the days of Galuppi: while the more hopeful tonic key of Abt Vogler, the C major of this life, indicates that fate and the tonic key have both fallen more under man’s control.”—Miss Helen Ormerod’s paper, read before the Browning Society, May 27th, 1887, throws additional light on some of the difficulties of this poem. “That the minor predominated in this quaint old piece (Toccata, by the way, means a touch piece, and probably was written to display the delicacy of the composer’s touch) is evident from the mention of—
“Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh,
Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions,—‘Must we die?’
Those commiserating sevenths—‘Life might last! we can but try!’”
The interval of the third is one of the most important; the signature of a piece may mislead one, the same signature standing for a major key and its relative minor; but the third of the opening chord decides the question, a lesser ‘plaintive’ third (composed of a tone and a semitone) showing the key to be minor; the greater third (composed of two whole tones) showing the key to be major. Pauer tells us that ‘the minor third gives the idea of tenderness, grief and romantic feeling.’ Next come the ‘diminished sixths’: these are sixths possessing a semitone less than a minor sixth,—for instance, from C sharp to A flat: this interval in a different key would stand as a perfect fifth. ‘Those suspensions, those solutions’—a suspension is the stoppage of one or more parts for a moment, while the others move on; this produces a dissonance, which is only resolved by the parts which produced it moving on to the position which would have been theirs had the parts moved simultaneously. We can understand that ‘those suspensions, those solutions’ might teach the Venetians, as they teach us, lessons of experience and hope; light after darkness, joy after sorrow, smiles after tears. ‘Those commiserating sevenths,’ of all dissonances, none is so pleasing to the ear, or so attractive to musicians, as that of minor and diminished sevenths, that of the major seventh being crude and harsh; in fact, the minor seventh is so charming in its discord as to suggest concord. Again, to quote from Pauer: ‘It is the antithesis of discord and concord which fascinates and charms the ear; it is the necessary solution and return to unity which delights us.’ After all this, the love-making begins again; but kisses are interrupted by the ‘dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to.’ This seems to indicate the close of the piece, the dominant being answered by an octave which suggests the perfect authentic cadence, in which the chord of the dominant is followed by that of the tonic. The Toccata is ended, and the gay gathering dispersed. I cannot help the thought that this old music of Galuppi’s was more of the head than the heart—more formal than fiery, suggestive rather of the chill of death than the heat of passion. The temporary silence into which the dancers were surprised by the playing of the Maestro is over, and the impressions caused by it are passed away, just as the silence of death was to follow the warmth and brightness of the glad Venetian life.”
To Edward Fitzgerald. In the Athenæum of July 13th, 1889, appeared this sonnet:—
“To Edward Fitzgerald.
“I chanced upon a new book yesterday;
I opened it, and, where my finger lay
’Twixt page and uncut page, these words I read—
Some six or seven at most—and learned thereby
That you, Fitzgerald, whom by ear and eye
She never knew, ‘thanked God my wife was dead.’
Ay, dead! and were yourself alive, good Fitz,
How to return you thanks would task my wits.
Kicking you seems the common lot of curs—
While more appropriate greeting lends you grace,
Surely to spit there glorifies your face—
Spitting from lips once sanctified by hers.
“Robert Browning.
“July 8th, 1889.”
The passage referred to is as follows: “Mrs. Browning’s death is rather a relief to me, I must say: no more Aurora Leighs, thank God! A woman of real genius, I know; but what is the upshot of it all! She and her sex had better mind the kitchen and the children; and perhaps the poor. Except in such things as little novels, they only devote themselves to what men do much better, leaving that which men do worse or not at all.” (Life and Letters of Edward Fitzgerald. Edited by Aldis Wright.)—Browning Society Papers, Notes, 229.