Tomaso Antonio Vitali (7 March 1663 – 9 May 1745) was an Italian composer and violinist of the mid to late

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...

era. The eldest son of

Giovanni Battista Vitali Giovanni Battista Vitali (18 February 1632 – 12 October 1692) was an Italian composer and violone player. Life and career Vitali was born in Bologna and spent all of his life in the Emilian region, moving to Modena in 1674. His teacher in his ...

, he is chiefly known for a

Chaconne in G minor The Chaconne in G minor is a Baroque composition for violin and continuo, traditionally attributed to the Italian composer Tomaso Antonio Vitali. A Dresden manuscript that may have been transcribed in the early 18th century is the earliest know ...

for

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

and continuo, to which he is traditionally attributed as the composer. The work was published from a manuscript in the

Sächsische Landesbibliothek The Saxon State and University Library Dresden (full name in german: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden), abbreviated SLUB Dresden, is located in Dresden, Germany. It is both the regional library (german: ...

in Dresden in ''Die Hoch Schule des Violinspiels'' (1867) edited by German violinist Ferdinand David. That work's wide-ranging modulations into distant

keys Key or The Key may refer to: Common meanings * Key (cryptography), a piece of information that controls the operation of a cryptography algorithm * Key (lock), device used to control access to places or facilities restricted by a lock * Key (m ...

have raised speculation that it could not be a genuine Baroque work, while the lack of similarities to other works by Vitali have made modern scholars cast serious doubts on the attribution.

Biography

Vitali was born in

Bologna Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different na ...

on 7 March 1663; his father was the noted composer and violinist

. He studied composition in

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label= Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and '' comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy. A town, and seat o ...

with Antonio Maria Pacchioni, and was employed at the Este court orchestra from 1675 to 1742. He was a teacher, whose pupils included

Evaristo Felice dall'Abaco Evaristo Felice Dall'Abaco (12 July 1675, Verona, Italy — 12 July 1742, Munich, Bavaria) was an Italian composer, violinist, and cellist. Life Dall'Abaco was born in Verona to renowned guitarist Damiano dall'Abaco. He is thought to have bee ...

, Jean Baptiste Senaillé, Girolamo Nicolò Laurenti and

Luca Antonio Predieri Luca Antonio Predieri (13 September 1688 – 3 January 1767) was an Italian composer and violinist. A member of a prominent family of musicians, Predieri was born in Bologna and was active there from 1704. In 1737 he moved to Vienna, eventually be ...

. Authentic works by Vitali include a set of

trio sonata The trio sonata is a genre, typically consisting of several movements, with two melody instruments and basso continuo. Originating in the early 17th century, the trio sonata was a favorite chamber ensemble combination in the Baroque era. Basic s ...

s published as his

opus number In musicology, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's production. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositi ...

s 1 and 2 (1693), sonatas da camera (chamber sonatas), and violin sonatas (including his opus 6) among other works. Among those that have been recorded include all of the op. 1 (on Naxos 8.570182), three of the violin sonatas (on the Swiss label Gallo), and some of the sonatas from the opp. 2 and 4 sets (opus 4, no. 12 on Classica CL 101 from Finland.) He died at

on 9 May 1745.

The chaconne

A chaconne is a musical form used as a vehicle for variation on a repeated short harmonic progression over a ground bass. The earliest known source for Vitali's Chaconne is a manuscript housed in the Sächsische Landesbibliothek Dresden with the shelfmark Mus. 2037/R/1. It has been identified as being in the hand of Johann Gottfried Grundig or Johann Jacob Lindner, copyists who worked at the Dresden Hofkapelle, and is dated ca.1730-40, which lends credit to its authenticity. The Chaconne was marked by the copyist, at the time of transcription, in the upper margin of the first page of the Dresden manuscript as "Parte del Tomaso Vitalino" (Tomaso Vitalino's part), who may or may not be Vitali. One striking feature of the "Vitali" Chaconne's style is the way it wildly changes key, reaching the far-flung territories of

B-flat minor B-flat minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. Its key signature has five flats. Its relative major is D-flat major and its parallel major is B-flat major. Its enharmonic equivalent, A-sh ...

and

E-flat minor E-flat minor is a minor scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature consists of six flats. Its relative key is G-flat major (or enharmonically F-sharp major) and its parallel key is E-flat major. ...

, modulations uncharacteristic of the Baroque era, as change of

key signature In Western musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp (), flat (), or rarely, natural () symbols placed on the staff at the beginning of a section of music. The initial key signature in a piece is placed immediately after the clef a ...

became typical only in

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. However, precedents exist in violin works of the 17th century. Especially relevant to Tomaso Vitali's Chaconne are the works of his father, Giovanni Battista, most significantly ''Passagallo che principia per B. molle, e finisce per Diesis'', and ''Balletto à due ... che il Violino sona per B. molle, e il Violone sona per diesis''. Striking examples of enharmonic modulation also exist in Georg Muffat's violin sonata of 1677. Despite musicological doubts, the piece has been ever popular amongst violinists. For example,

Jascha Heifetz Jascha Heifetz (; December 10, 1987) was a Russian-born American violinist. Born in Vilnius, he moved while still a teenager to the United States, where his Carnegie Hall debut was rapturously received. He was a virtuoso since childhood. Fritz ...

chose it, in a "very much arranged and altered version", with organ accompaniment, to open his American debut in

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between West 56th and 57th Streets. Designed by architect William Burnet Tuthill and built ...

in 1917. Arrangements of it exist for violin and piano by Ferdinand David and by Léopold Charlier, for violin and organ, for violin and orchestra by

Ottorino Respighi Ottorino Respighi ( , , ; 9 July 187918 April 1936) was an Italian composer, violinist, teacher, and musicologist and one of the leading Italian composers of the early 20th century. His compositions range over operas, ballets, orchestral su ...

, and there are transcriptions of it for viola and piano by Friedrich Hermann (1828-1907) and for cello and piano by

Luigi Silva is a fictional character featured in video games and related media released by Nintendo. Created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Luigi is portrayed as the younger fraternal twin brother and sidekick of Mario, Nintendo' ...

Selected discography

* Tomaso Antonio Vitali: Twelve Trio Sonatas Op. 1. Performed by Luigi Cozzolino (violin), Luca Giardini (violin), Bettina Hoffmann (cello), Gianluca Lastraioli (theorbo and guitar), Andrea Perugi (organ and harpsichord). Released in 2006. Naxos 8.570182

References

Sources

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External links