Virtuosi and improvised counterpoint in the early 17th century, part 1

Little is known about Dario Castello, except that he worked in Venice in the first decades of the seventeenth century, that he worked at St. Mark's cathedral, and that he was apparently a virtuoso wind player, probably first of all a bassoonist. In his own time, though, he was quite well known: as Andrew dell'Antonio puts it, "The unusual number of reprints of [his two] books of sonatas is an indication of the popularity and wide diffusion of Castello's works" (Oxford Music Online).

Book 1 was published in1621 as Sonate concertate in stil moderno, libro primo. The seventh sonata is typical. Eight sections of varying lengths—but mostly short by modern standards—are typical of the canzona style, as is the continuo bass and virtuosic solo writing. It is from works like this that the sonata da chiesa and the mid-eighteenth century sonata developed.

In this post I first present an overview of the design with incipits for each of the eight sections. After that I look at the closing cadences for same.

An imitative, "fugue-like" section opens (1), but is interrupted by an expressive ornamented adagio at (2). An extended imitative section in triple meter is next (3), then two solo sections follow, first for violin (4), then for bassoon (5). A short section (6) consisting of elaborated sequences is followed by another "fugue-like" section in triple meter (7) and an elaborate cadenza-like close (8). The opening in duple with a change to triple later on, the fugato work, ornamentation, and elaborate close are all typical of solo musical practices from at least the 1590s on.

Now for the cadences. The range of the violin is restricted; the topmost significant note is A5: Bb5, B5, and C6 are *briefly* touched on only once or twice in sections 1, 3, and 4. Most of the section-ending cadences show the soloist's tendency—which will only be exaggerated in subsequent generations and centuries—to want to end brilliantly and therefore in a higher, not lower, register. As a result, rising gestures are common. The cadenza perfetta does not appear because the bassoon matches the continuo, and the "three-part rule" of basic counterpoint, where the bass provides the root of the dominant, is followed throughout.