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A Salve for Signora BuonafedeDenis ArnoldPublished online: 28 Jan 2009.

To cite this article: Denis Arnold (1988) A Salve for Signora Buonafede, Journal ofthe Royal Musical Association, 113:2, 168-171, DOI: 10.1093/jrma/113.2.168

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\ SAU E FOR SIGNORA BbON AFEDE 1 69

sung on Christmas Eve in S. Marco.8 Only for a short time around1750 does he seem to have incurred the displeasure of an employer:the governors of the Mendicanti did not think he was performing histeaching duties adequately or composing enough for the chapel.9 Butthat was exactly the period of the Galuppi—Goldoni boom in operabuff a. He may well have been over-stretched at this period.

This popularity was possible only for a fluent, versatile composer.His fluency is proved by the sheer amount of music that he composedin an admittedly long life. About 80 operas including both serioussettings of Metastasio and buffo settings of Goldoni; 25 oratorios orsacra componimenti; a mass of of instrumental music; and an evengreater mass of church music, including works both in the slile anticoand in a stile molto moderno. His versatility is equally obvious from thesheer range of these compositions, which include not only all kinds ofopera, but also sonatas for cembalo, orchestral sinfome, church musicfor choir and/or orchestra, solo cantatas, motets for soloist andorchestra; in fact, virtually all the genres current in the eighteenthcentury. And all, we may suggest, written well for the performers athand.

His gifts are exemplified in a setting of Salve regina made in 1746 forthe Signora Buonafede, the autograph score of which survives in thelibrary of the Conservatorio musicale Nicolo Paganini at Genoa (seeFigure I).10 In his music for S. Marco, Galuppi exploits perfectly thechoir and orchestra of the basilica. At the Mendicanti he found solosingers (all women) of great quality, probably an adequate orchestraand a not very distinguished choir. Among the singers was SignoraBuonafede. She must have been an extraordinarily good singer. Shewas admitted to the Mendicanti in 1733, not under the normal ruleseither of need or as a fee-paying pupil, but because she was a singer

di buona vocc di soprano, chc si pud dire rarissima per il suo Corpo, ePurita, e per la sua estensione di corde tutte egualmente sonore, e nctc, chedi tnllo naturale, e perfettissima orecchia, che fa spcrare un' ottima, c rarariuscita per il Coro medesimo."

She took the part of 'Spiritus Tentator' in Galuppi's Sancta MariaMagdalena in 1740, having been 'Judas Iscanotes' in Saratelli's Mag-dalenae Conversio (verse by Goldoni) in the previous year. She was the'Angelus' in Galuppi's Isaac in 1745 and was still singing a motet inthe celebrations of the festival of S. Maria Maddalena at the Men-dicanti in 1765.l2

She was therefore no young girl when Galuppi wrote his Salve reginasetting in 1746, but a soprano of experience and quality. The Salvesuggests that she had a not particularly high or brilliant voice, but a

8 ASV, Procuratia de Supra, Registro 154, f 74V

9 Giuseppe Ellero, Arte e musica all'OspedakUo (Venice, 1978), 18910 Facsimile edition, Ediziom della Polifoma Genovese del .Vladrigahsti" Ellero, A rte e musica, 184-512 Bibhotcca Casa di Goldoni, Venice, Miscellanea 12 B 4/2

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Figure 1 . Pagrs 1 and 7 of thr autograph score of Galuppi's S n l ; , ~ re,qinn. Conservatorio musicale Nicoli) Paganini. Cirnoa.

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A.W/.I£FORSIGNORABUONAFEDE 171

sound middle register capable of expression and neat fiontura. Galuppitook as his general model the motetto a voce sola developed as early as1715 by Vivaldi.13 But whereas Vivaldi in turn took as his model thethree-movement concerto, Galuppi had greater experience in theopera sinfonia. There are three movements, Andantino-Allegro-Andantino grazioso. Of these, the central movement is a reatativoaccompagnato. The first movement, instead of a da capo aria whichwould not be out of place in an opera sena, is more classical in form andspirit. After an extended ritornello, the voice enters with the samematerial, modulates to the dominant key and after some developmenteventually arrives at a cadenza and shortened final ritornello. Theaccompagnato, far from the heroic style of Jommelli, then at theIncurabili, is short and, from the autograph score, seems to havecaused the composer a little trouble. The third movement bears adistinct resemblance to the finale of an opera sinfonia, with its dancerhythms and 3/8 time producing gracefulness rather than a climacticpower.

The vocal style is definitely nearer the seria parts of the opera buffathan opera seria itself. The short phrases, the ornamentation in themanner of the Neapolitan composers rather than the grand manner ofthe pre-1725 Venetians, remind us that Galuppi's historical achieve-ment was in fact giving opera buffa a sentimental, quasi-serious cast. Itwas a style to become very familiar to Venetian theatre audiences ofthe following decade. No wonder that the Mendicanti had to enlargeits chapel and choir galleries to accommodate the increased atten-dance of the public at this time.14

In the nineteenth century, such music became unfashionable.Religious music must be pure — or at least evoke an age long gone. ButGaluppi's gentle style is not far from that of Mozart, who sometimessets the Agnus dei of the Mass in much the same manner (forexample, in the so-called 'Coronation' Mass, K.317). And we must notaccount him less devout because he uses a style natural to him, atheatre composer, any more than feel that Verdi's 'Manzoni' Requiemis the less because it is obviously the work of the composer who hadwritten Aida. Signora Buonafede was fortunate to have such a maestroat the Mendicanti in 1746.

13 'Vivaldi's Motets for Solo Voice', Vivaldi Veneztano Europea, cd. Francesco Dcgrada and DenisArnold (Florence, 1980)

14 ASV, Ospedali e Luoghi Pn, Busta 655, entry for 21 September 1744.

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