Ludovico Roncalli (1654-1713)
Complete Guitar Music: Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra Spagnola
Bernard Hostötter (baroque guitar)
rec.2019, Blankenberg, Germany
Brilliant Classics 95856 [2 CDs: 92]

Ludovico Roncalli – or, to give him his full name and title, Count Ludovico Giuseppe Antonio Filippo Roncalli – was born in Bergamo in 1654, the second son of Conte Giovanni Martino. According to a paper by Maria Dell’Ara and Giacomo Parimbelli, ‘Ludovico Roncalli, l’abate chitarrista’, published in the Italian journal Il Fronimo, no. 126 (April 2004), pp. 15-19, the Roncalli family still possesses a portrait of Ludovico in clerical dress, on the reverse of which he is described as “Count Ludovico Roncalli, graduate in civil and canon law, priest, and illustrious donor of a legacy for spiritual exercises”. Evidently his family saw no reason to register his achievements as a composer and – presumably – guitarist; perhaps they even found such activities a little embarrassing.

Little is known about Roncalli’s life. In her booklet note accompanying this disc, Monica Hill tells us that ,“The family archives preserve a letter from Francesco [Ludovico’s elder brother], addressed to his father, in which he mentions the financial assistance he had given his brother, Ludovico, whilst he was in Rome in 1695”.Ludovico’s Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra Spagnola was published in Rome in 1692, bearing a dedication to Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili, patron of composers such as Handel, Alessandro Scarlatti and Corelli and sometimes the author of libretti for their works.  

The 1692 collection carries the words ‘opera prima’ on its title page. In fact, it seems to be the only music ever published by Roncalli. Given their general sophistication and the skill of the contrapuntal writing in the nine ‘Sonatas’ which make up the Capricci it is very difficult to believe that this was the only music Roncalli wrote. The Capricci could surely not have been written in such a vacuum? Perhaps more of his work awaits discovery in Italian libraries and archives. 

The Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra Spagnola consists of nine works, each of which Roncalli calls a ‘Sonata’. They are essentially suites: Sonata 1 being in G, no.2 in E minor, no.3 in B minor, no.4 in D, no.5 in A minor, no.6 in F, no.7 in D minor, no.8 in C, and no.9 in G minor. Each of these ‘suites’ begins with an unmeasured prelude, followed by an Allemande, plus a sequence of ‘dance’ movements (which vary between 3 and 5 in number); the fifth suite (in A minor) closes with a movement described as ‘Passacaglii; so too does the closing sonata in G minor, the greater formality presumably deemed a fitting conclusion to the work as a whole. In most of the suites the Allemande provides themes for some of the e dance movements which follow it, thus giving them a degree of unity.

This is, I believe, the first complete recording of Roncalli’s Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra Spagnola on the kind of instrument for which the composer intended them: the baroque guitar. It makes for a thoroughly satisfying pair of discs; Bernhard Hofstötter’s playing is fluent and characterised both by his perfect sense of line and his balancing of bass and treble strings – not something easily achieved sustained on the baroque guitar. Where appropriate (as in the correntes in several of the sonatas), Hofstötter incorporates a French-influenced style assuming, perhaps, that Roncalli would have been familiar with the music of Robert de Visée. Indeed, Roncalli is fundamentally indebted to French examples, as suggested by Robert Strizich in his brief entry on Roncalli in The New Grove: “Roncalli gave no indication of the tuning for his pieces, but their style and texture seem to indicate the ‘French’ tuning … used by his contemporaries [Francesco] Corbetta, [Nicolas] Derosier and [Robert de] Visée”. Though Corbetta was Italian by birth, he established himself in France.

The Capricci armonici sopra la chitarra Spagnola seems to have been the last collection of music for the baroque guitar to be published in Italy. Though the instrument fell out of favour, Roncalli’s work was not entirely forgotten. An edition in modern notation, by Oscar Chilesotti was published in 1881. It may have been in this source that Ottorino Respighi acquired his knowledge of Roncalli’s music -Respighi made an arrangement of the Passacaglia from Roncalli’s Sonata in G major, and used it as the closing piece of his third suite of Antiche arie e danza, published in 1930. Since at least Segovia, guitarists have sometimes included pieces by Roncalli in concert recitals or in recorded anthologies of music for guitar.

It is, however, far more rewarding to hear and judge Roncalli’s music on the basis of a set such as this, i.e. complete, and recorded on the kind of five-course guitar for which it was written. There is a dark, but attractive resonance to this recorded performance, though Bernhard Hofstötter fully respects the terpsichorean momentum with which much of this music is invested. Hofstötter’s use of ornamentation and embellishment may perhaps seem excessive to some listeners, though I find such touches enlivening and well-judged.

This is a fine pair of discs, which I have enjoyed a great deal over several hearings and for which I thank not only the performer but also the skilled work of the recording producer, Martin Linde.

Glyn Pursglove

Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free