“Sonatas peep out everywhere here”: two new sonatas for violin and bass by virtuoso Giovanni Antonio Piani

Abstract

Guido Olivieri

“Sonatas peep out everywhere here”: two new sonatas for violin and bass by virtuoso Giovanni Antonio Piani.

Violinist Giovanni Antonio Piani played a crucial role in the triumph of Italian instrumental music in France at the beginning of the 18^th century. A member of a celebrated musical family, he studied at the Conservatorio della Pietà dei Turchini, Naples. After moving to Paris, he entered the service of the count of Toulouse while the French aristocracy was beginning to champion the new Italian music. His violin Sonatas, Op. 1, issued in Paris in 1712, were his only known works until now. This essay discusses a recently discovered manuscript with two unknown sonatas for violin and continuo. Their first modern edition is in the Appendix. Their technical and stylistic traits are discussed in light of performance practice indications from Piani’s printed set of sonatas and early 18^th-century Paris musical and cultural context. This finding deepens our knowledge of a celebrated virtuoso while also offering further significant evidence on Neapolitan instrumental music circulation in Europe.