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 early years was probably Maurizio Cazzati (1616–1678), maestro di cappella at the main church in Bologna, San Petronio Basilica from 1657 to 1671.
The first documented evidence of Vitali's musical activities appears in the records of the San Petronio orchestra for 1658, when he is listed under the title 'Violoni', referring to the cello/bass instrument that he played.
Vitali remained in the orchestra until 1673, when he took up an appointment as maestro di cappella at the chapel of the Confraternità del Rosario, Bologna. His first publication, Opus 1 (1666), tells us that he was a member of the Accademia dei Filaschisi. This musical institution, which had been established in 1633, disbanded in 1666 when most of its members joined the Accademia Filarmonica. Vitali is also listed as a member of the Accademia Filarmonica in 1666, the year of its founding. The academy archives record various details of its members, including where they came from (if not from Bologna) and their dates of birth and death. Vitali's death date is here recorded as 12 October 1692.
Vitali never reached a higher position in Bologna than that of maestro di cappella at the Santissimo Rosario. There may be several reasons for this. By the time he left Bologna and moved to Modena he had not published any vocal music and is known to have composed only two vocal works, the oratorios Agare and Il Gefte. He was also, significantly, not an organist – unlike the vast majority of maestri di cappella in Bologna during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is unlikely, therefore, that even if Vitali had stayed longer in Bologna he would have been offered the job of maestro di cappella at San Petronio, the most important musical position in the city.
In 1674 Vitali attained the position of one of two vice-maestri di cappella at the secular court of the Este family in Modena. Unlike Modena, Bologna was part of the Papal States, under the administration of Rome. The Church's influence was strong (around one hundred and fifty religious institutions at the end of the seventeenth century). Music and the theatre were evidently strongly supported and patronised by the court under Duke Francesco II (1660–1694). Here, Vitali must have witnessed a greater diversity of musical styles and genres than he had been exposed to in Bologna. The period between 1680 and 1685 saw his most productive time: he published six collections of music and was promoted to maestro di cappella in 1684. He was succeeded in this position by the opera composer Antonio Giannettini (1648–1721) in 1686. His last two publications, Artificii musicali, Opus 13 (1689), and the posthumously published Sonate da camera, Opus 14 (1692), make no mention of Vitali holding any official position, although the fact that both publications are dedicated to members of the Este family implies that he maintained links with the court.
As a musician Vitali played a bowed stringed bass instrument but, due to the shifting terminology in use at the time, this is referred to under various names. When he joined the orchestra of the San Petronio Basilica in 1658, his name was entered in the records of the orchestra under the heading 'Violoni', paid 10 lira.Alfred Planyavsky and James Barket: The Baroque Double Bass Violone, p. 74, Bloomsbury 1998 However, in the records for 1664 he is referred to as 'Suonatore di Violonline [sic]'. According to Bonta,Stephen Bonta: "Terminology for the Bass Violin in Seventeenth-Century Italy", Journal of the American Musical Instrument Society; iv (1978), 5-42. 'violonline' refers to the same instrument as 'violoncino' – which is also mentioned in the 1658 list, but with no connection to Vitali. On the title pages of the first five of Vitali's publications, he calls himself or . From his Salmi concerti, Opus 6 (1677), onwards, and in later reprints of the Opp. 1–5, after his appointment to the Modenese court, he calls himself , with no reference to the instrument he played. When a description of the instruments a publication is intended for is given on the title page and includes a melodic bass instrument, the generic term 'violone' is always used.
During the time Vitali was at the San Petronio Basilica, the size of the orchestra changed relatively little: typically the records state that the orchestra consisted of three violins, two or three violas, two violoni (Vitali himself and Domenico Vincenzo Colonna) and one to two theorbos. Vitali does not appear in the records for 1674, having resigned that year and left for Modena. There seems not to have been an immediate replacement for him that year, but in 1675 Petronio Franceschini (1651–1680) was appointed and listed separately as 'violoncello' – the first documented use of this term in Bologna. The bowed bass section of the San Petronio orchestra at this point therefore comprised Colonna on violone and Franceschini on violoncello. In 1676, presumably to better distinguish between the two instruments, the term 'violone' is replaced by 'violone grosso', and Colonna is listed as playing it. The fact that this distinction in terminology was not deemed necessary earlier implies that Vitali was playing the same instrument as Colonna (the 'violone grosso', not the 'violoncello'). After Franceschini's death his position was filled by Domenico Gabrielli (1659–1690) who was among the first virtuoso cellists – so this orchestra position is now clearly reserved for a cellist.
New techniques in producing gut strings wound with metal wire took place in Bologna during the 1660s. It is probable that the wide variety of terminology in use was due in part to the experimentation with bowed bass instruments capable of producing good lower notes without the need for long string lengths due to these developments. Other terms in use at the time include the viola da spalla, a cello or smaller bowed bass instrument which was held at the shoulder and rested on the player's lap, supported by a strap Giuseppe Torelli was appointed to the cappella musicale at the San Petronio Basilica in 1686 as a player of the 'tenore viola'.
One of Vitali's few surviving unpublished works is the Partite sopra diverse sonate, for 'violone', ca. 1680. The style of the writing is much more clearly suited to the cello, which suggests that Vitali is still using 'violone' as a general term for bowed bass.
Bolognese academies Bolognese musical life was enhanced by the existence of academies. The Accademia dei Filaschisi was formed in 1633 by Domenico Brunetti and Francesco Bertacchi and Vitali claims to be a member of this institution on the title page of his first publication, Opus 1, 1666. In this year the Accademia dei Filaschisi was disbanded, and a new academy, the Accademia Filarmonica was set up, as shown in its archives, where he is classed as compositore rather than an instrumentalist. The earliest of Vitali's own publications to state his membership in the Accademia Filarmonica was his Opus 7, (Modena, 1682). Most of his subsequent published works describe him as a member of both institutions – , – despite the fact that the Accademia dei Filaschisi was no longer in existence.
The links between the orchestra of the San Petronio Basilica and the Accademia Filarmonica are apparent from a comparison of lists of members of both institutions. The most significant absentee from the membership of the Accademia Filarmonica is Maurizio Cazzati. The musical community of Bologna was split in the 1660s by a bitter polemic started by Lorenzo Perti, a priest at San Petronio. He identified some apparent musical errors in the Kyrie of Cazzati's Missa primi toni, which had been published in his five-part Messa e salmi, Opus 17 (1655). Giulio Cesare Arresti (1619–1701), newly installed as organist at the San Petronio Basilica, sided with Perti and was consequently dismissed in 1661. This contentious affair invites the speculation that the Accademia Filarmonica was set up specifically in opposition to Cazzati and his followers. However, Vitali publicly acknowledged Cazzati as his teacher in the letter to the reader of his Opus 1 (1666) – an unexpected gesture from one of the Accademia Filarmonica's most prominent members, if indeed hostilities were rife.
At the Este Court, Modena As one of two vice-maestri di cappella to Duke Francesco II (the other was Giuseppe Colombi), Vitali must have been required to provide church music as well as music for various state occasions. His two published sets of vocal music date from his period at Modena (1674–1692): the Salmi concertati, Opus 6 (1677), vesper psalms in concerted style, and Hinni sacri, Opus 10 (1684), a collection of forty-nine hymns for solo voice with five-part instrumental ritornellos. There are also many vocal works from this period found in manuscript: ten sacred and secular cantatas and four oratorios, the music of two of which survives. The texts of his oratorios are either allegorical or based on the Old Testament. One cantata, Per l'Accademia della Coronatione delle Regina d'Inghilterra, was written to commemorate the coronation of Maria Beatrice, Francesco II's sister, when her husband became King James II of England.
Works Instrumental Of the fourteen publications in Vitali's output, nine are 'da camera' dance collections (Opera 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 11, 12 and 14), two are sacred vocal (Opera 6 and 10), and three are free or 'da chiesa' sonatas (Opera 2, 5 and 9). The remaining set, Opus 13, does not fit comfortably into these categories, being a pedagogical assembly of sixty compositions all concerning contrapuntal techniques.
The majority of the da chiesa works (thirty-six sonatas in total) are scored for two violins and organ continuo. Opus 5, however, is unusual in that it contains a variety of scorings: as well as sonatas for two violins and continuo, Vitali includes sonatas for two violins, violone and continuo and as well as sonatas for four and five parts and continuo.
Da camera sonatas The bulk of Vitali's output consists of dance music. His last collection of dance music, and his last printed work, Sonate da camera a tre, Opus 14 (1692), was published posthumously by his son Tomaso Antonio Vitali in 1692.
Correnti, e Balletti da camera, Opus 1 (1666a), was first printed in Bologna and was reprinted four times during Vitali's lifetime. The collection contains twelve balletti and twelve correnti. The dances are all short, typically sixteen bars in length for the balletti and forty-eight bars for the correnti; in binary form.
In Vitali's next dance collection, Balletti, correnti alla francese, Opus 3 (1667), we see a greater diversity of dances: as well as pairs of balletti and correnti, there are gagliardas, a canario, a sarabanda, two sinfonias and a brando suite in several sections. The set is scored for two violins, viola and continuo but the viola part has little melodic interest and tends to fill in the harmony.
In Vitali's third set of dance music, Balletti, correnti, gighe, allemande e sarabande a violino, violone o spinetta con il secondo violino a beneplacito, Opus 4 (1668), he states on the title page that the second violin part is optional.
We find a greater variety of dance types in Opus 4 than in Vitali's previous da camera collections. There are twenty-four pieces: ballettos, allemandas, gigas, correntes, sarabandas and a rare example of a zoppa.
In Balletti, correnti e capricci per camera, Opus 8 (1683), Vitali returns to a relatively simple arrangement of paired balletti and correnti with the addition of one giga and two final movements entitled Capriccio. Each pair of balletto and corrente shares both a key and thematic material. The concluding capricci of Opus 8 are contrapuntal pieces.