I Bassi per esercizio d’accompagnamento all’antico: Giuseppe Giacomo Saratelli e la tradizione del partimento in area veneta

Abstract

In Milan, Munich, Münster, and Berlin there are four copies of an interesting collection of partimenti entitled Bassi per esercizio d’accompagnamento all’antico. This is a work by organist and composer Giuseppe Giacomo Saratelli. Born in Padua in 1714 and a pupil of Lotti, Saratelli was chorus master at the Ospedale dei Mendicanti and maestro di cappella at San Marco in Venice. Considered a leading personality of the Venetian musical life of his time, Saratelli was famous for his oratorio Magdalenae conversio on a libretto by Goldoni, which was performed in 1739. It is his collection of partimenti, an example of a rather unexplored tradition, however, that primarily attracts our attention. As a matter of fact, all existing studies on the partimento tradition have focused primarily on Neapolitan sources. The present article aims at broadening the horizon of this research field, promoting a preliminary analytical survey on the employment of partimento in the Venetian area, beginning with Giuseppe Giacomo Saratelli and his Bassi per esercizio d’accompagnamento all’antico