Vicente Martín y Soler, composer, biography, discography

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	Vicente Martín y Soler





	Paul McCreesh
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	Jongleurs: music and a way of life in the middle ages
	Arcadia Questioned: Martín y Soler’s Dramme Giocoso and Scenic Cantatas



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Martín y Soler, Vicente


	VICENTE MARTÍN Y SOLER

It is surprising to discover, on the 250th anniversary of his birth, that only a small part of his output has been rediscovered. Only five of his operas and one scenic cantata have been performed over the last 15 years: Una cosa rara (1991) [Savall/Montañés], Il burbero di buon cuore (1995) [Savall/Defló], L’Arbore di Diana (1996) [Östman/Otero-Richter], Il Sogno (2000) [Otero/Martínez], and La capricciosa corretta (2003) [Rousset/de Letteriis]. Recently I had the opportunity to conduct the orchestra of the Real Compañía Ópera de Cámara in a performance of Ifigenia in Aulide (December 2003). Likewise, recordings of his music have been scarce and have been approached using very different criteria, while apart from private initiatives, the publication of his complete works is still a matter pending for Spanish musicology. This disproportion is even more inexplicable given the importance of a composer of his stature, as is clear from the analysis of his works, the significance of his compositional personality and the nature of the musical genres he cultivated: ballet, opera seria, the dramma giocoso and scenic cantata. These four main areas of his activity help to reach the essence of his character.

Precursor of comtemporary dance

Martín y Soler’s output should firstly be discussed in relation to ballet, the genre that brought him the greatest prestige and that he pursued with the most persistency. In 1785, Da Ponte described the references that reached him about Martín prior to their first meeting: “This young composer [31 years old], albeit Spanish by birth, has an exquisite taste for Italian music, but although he is highly esteemed for his ballets, he was little known [in Vienna] as a composer for the voice.” More than 13 ballets serios and three comic ballets mark his two main European periods of creativity, those spent in Italy and Russia. Ballet served as a form to try out a multitude of orchestral combinations, rhythmic structures, dynamic strategies and programmatic relations (timbres related to characters, melodic cells with theatrical plots), later incorporated into the musical-dramaturgical language of his opere serie, cantatas and dramme giocosi, forming an unmistakable hallmark of his art.

Ballet, opera seria, the dramma giocoso and scenic cantata. These four main areas of his activity help to reach the essence of his character.

Martín y Soler arrived in Naples in November 1777, at the age of 23, to compose his first ballet for the largest theatre in Europe at the time, the Teatro di San Carlo (with its 65-piece orchestra, outnumbering the Paris Opera, London and Vienna, with 60, 45 and 37 members respectively). The reason behind his arrival remains an enigma, particularly considering he had few known previous accomplishments that would justify the importance of the commission. He was educated in Valencia with local maestros including his father and the tenor Francisco Javier Martín, and as a choirboy at the cathedral, subsequently moving to Madrid, where he came into contact with the baritone Domenico Guglietti. At the time he had composed just the one work worthy of note: Il tutore burlato, a dramma giocoso with a libretto based on La Frascatana by Filippo Livigni, premiered during the summer of 1775 at the Teatro Real de la Granja de San Ildefonso for Charles III.