Le virtuose fatiche, the recording

Notes written by Guido Olivieri for the CD

Between the last quarter of the seveenteenth and the first half of the eighteenth centuries flourished in Naples a veritable cello school. Neapolitan cello virtuosi, often educated in one of four conservatories, were acclaimed as the leading soloists of the time, both in the Neapolitan viceregno and in the major European courts.

Francesco Paolo Tomaso Supriani (1678-1753) (Supriano or Sopriano; the spelling ‘Scipriani’ sometimes found in recent literature is inaccurate) was certainly among the most prominent Neapolitan cello players of the time. Born in Conversano, near Bari, on July 11, 1678, the son of Nicola and Maddalena Ferrari, Supriani moved to Naples at the age of fourteen. According to the contract of admission at the conservatory of Pietà dei Turchini on April 13, 1693 the young student intended to commit initially for two years as a soprano. A few years later, however, Supriani began studying with one of the greatest Neapolitan maestri, Giovanni Carlo Cailò, and came out of the conservatory as one of the leading cello players.

He was already serving as a supernumerary in the Cappella Reale when in 1707 Archduke Charles of Habsburg sent Girolamo Capece, Marquis of Rofrano, to Naples to select and bring to Spain the best young musicians of the city to form the Real Capilla de Barzelona. The young cellist was then hired as “violencello de Spagna” with a monthly salary of seventeen ducats. “Checco”, however, remained in Spain only for about a year. In 1709, because “of illness,” he went back to Naples and was replaced in Barcelona by another student of Cailò, the cellist Antonio Rayola. A few years earlier he had married the singer Margherita Mencarelli, for whom he also wrote some cantatas with obbligato cello.

In Naples Supriani obtained a stable position as first cello at the Cappella Reale, where he remained employed until his death on August 28, 1753. In October 1711 he also joined the ensemble of virtuosi of the Tesoro di San Gennaro. The governors of the prestigious ensemble considered “Checco Sopriano to be the best in the city in this profession” (“Checco Sopriano, esser il più ottimo che sia oggi in questa Città in tal mestiere”). Archival documents attest that Supriani was paid for his “virtuous efforts” (“virtuose fatiche”) as first cello at the Teatro di San Bartolomeo in 1735 and played in 1744 at the festivities of the affluent Monastero della Trinità delle Monache.

Supriani occupies a relevant place in the history of the cello as the author of the earliest extant Italian method for this instrument, the Principij da imparare a suonare il violoncello. Music profession in the eighteenth century was considered a craft whose principles were transmitted orally from teacher to student. This apprenticeship culture and the limited literacy of the musicians of the time help to explain the lack of written treatises or lengthy exegesis on performance practices in Italy. The publication of written methods started to appear later in the eighteenth century and were mostly destined to amateur performers. Supriani’s manuscript method thus represents a remarkable exception in the Italian context.

The first few pages of Supriani’s Principij contain a concise description of the fundamentals of music supplemented by exercises on chromatic scales, thirds, fourths, and octaves. Following this introduction there are twelve one-movement Toccate for cello solo, which develop various aspects of the instrument’s technique, including string crossings, batteries, sixteenth-note perpetuum mobile, dotted rhythms, triple meter in white notation, cantabile style, and the popular giga or siciliana rhythms. The set thus appears to be a compendium of the essential technical possibilities of the instrument, indeed a veritable introduction “to learn how to play the violoncello.”

A further manuscript source is closely related to the Principij. It is an incomplete set of twelve one-movement works titled on the frontispiece Sonate per 2 violoncelli e basso, which appears at first glance written for the unusual combination of three cellos. A closer examination, however, reveals that, with the exception of the last two, these twelve works derive from the toccatas of the Principij. In each sonatas the original melody, transcribed in the upper part has been supplemented by a plain bass line at the bottom, while the second cello part presents spectacular virtuosic diminutions of the original melodic outline of the toccatas. Several of these sonatas thus appear as written-out elaborations of the original toccatas while in others the second cello part is a completely new variant that requires advanced technical skills. Some of the elaborations make extensive use of the upper register, going up to d2 (whereas the original toccatas stay below a1), calling for the use of thumb position, frequent recourse to double, triple and quadruple stops, arpeggiated chords, and challenging bow strokes.

Clearly these are rare examples of the type of elaborations that virtuoso cello players could improvise in solo performances or when accompanying arias and recitatives. The dazzling technique present in these sonatas suggests that the instrument used by Supriani was a smaller four-string violoncello tuned C-G-d-a, akin to the one used by Bononcini in his cello works and later described by Corrette in his treatise. The sonatas could have been used as advanced teaching tools complementary to the toccatas included in the Principij, while the latter aim at developing fundamental technical skills and introducing beginners to cello performance, the virtuosic elaborations in the sonatas present a complex repertory of patterns for improvised elaborations destined to the most advanced students or professionals.

The approach taken in this recording demonstrates that Supriani’s embellished versions can be used as a fine model to recreate and expand on the original performance of solo as well as continuo parts of the eighteenth-century literature. This recording aims to show how performers can thus expand on their improvised elaborations and use them not only for performance on the cello, but on other continuo instruments as well (keyboard, harp and bassoon).

The compositional process emerging from this collection is thus closely connected with the diminutions of bass patterns and to the practice of partimento, and places Supriani’s works squarely within the ongoing pedagogical tradition of the Neapolitan conservatories. Although we do not know of any official teaching position held by Supriani, some documents hint at a professional employment of the cello virtuoso “as Violoncello of His Excellency the Count of Cerreto” (“Violoncello di S. E. il Conte di Cerreto suo Sig.nore”), Domenico Marzio Carafa, an amateur cello player and major patrons of music in Naples. The pedagogical aim behind the Principij’s toccatas and the elaborate sonatas becomes manifest in Supriani’s Studio per violoncello (here recorded for the first time). This ‘étude’ for cello and continuo is divided in three movements, two without tempo indications, but presumably fast, surrounding a slow “Senza Prescia” (a dialectal expression meaning “without rushing”). We notice in it most of the technical devices employed in the toccatas and sonatas, but the first movement also features unique passages written in all seven clefs over simple bass patterns and cadences. The frequent clef changes and elaboration on bass patterns connect this Studio to the practice of solfeggio, a training tool used in the Neapolitan conservatories to develop the ability to elaborate contrapuntally melodic patterns.

The appeal of Supriani’s composition, however, does not end with the display of an elaborate technique. This is certainly present in the fast movements of the two surviving sonatas (or sinfonie) for cello and continuo, full of elaborate passageworks and sparkling bow strokes – as in the Allegro assai of the C major sonata or the final Presto of the A minor, an Italian corrente and a “Neapolitan” giga, respectively. The two sonatas, however, show the lyrical qualities of the cello as well. The opening Siciliano of the sonata in A minor is a poignant example of the cantabile style characteristic of the Neapolitan tradition, almost reminiscent of operatic arias by A. Scarlatti or Pergolesi. Supriani’s adoption of an exquisite galant style emerges also in the central Adagio of the A minor sonata or the opening “Amoroso” of the C major work, analogous to the Toccata no.5.

Supriani’s cello works thus represent the epitome of the Neapolitan cello school’s technical achievements. A crucial resource in the study of eighteenth-century cello performance practice, these repertory shows the way in which performance practices were transmitted from one generation of performers to the next, and reveals the high degree of technical proficiency expected by the Neapolitan string virtuosi. These works are indeed an outstanding example of the kind of brilliant virtuoso performance practice that characterized the Neapolitan school and that contributed to the emancipation of the cello from its role as a continuo instrument. Virtuosi such as Francesco Paolo Supriani, Francesco Alborea, Salvatore Lanzetti, among others, trained in the Neapolitan conservatories, took their refined technique and expressive playing to the major musical courts of Europe, and crucially contributed to the dissemination of the modern cello and to the advancement and standardization of performance practices.

        Guido Olivieri, August 2023

Selected Literature:

Olivieri, Guido. “The Early History of the Cello in Naples: Giovanni Bononcini, Rocco Greco and Gaetano Francone in a Forgotten Manuscript Collection." Eighteenth-Century Music 18/1 (2021): 65-97.

Barbati, Giovanna. “’Il n’exécute jamais la Basse telle qu’elle est écrite:’ The Use of Improvisation in Teaching Low Strings.” In Fulvia Morabito, ed. Musical Improvisation in the Baroque Era. Turnhout: Brepols, 2019, 123-29

Olivieri, Guido. “Cello Teaching and Playing in Naples in the Early Eighteenth Century: Francesco Paolo Supriani’s Principij da imparare a suonare il violoncello.” In Timothy D. Watkins, ed. Performance Practice: Issues and Approaches. Ann Arbor: Steglein, 2009, 109-36.