Thomas Ravenscroft, Sonata sesta en La mayor.

Casi: Giovanni (John) Ravenscroft.

John Ravenscroft
(d before 1709). English composer. He was resident in Rome in the late 17th century and published two sets of sonatas ([12] Sonate a trè, 2 vn, vle/archlute, org, op.1 (Rome, 1695); [6] Sonatas or Chamber Aires, 2 vn, bc, op.2 (London, c1708)). It is assumed that he was a pupil of Corelli, but this is supported only by a manuscript copy of his op.1 now held in Vienna, which bears the inscription ‘Inglese allievo d'Arcangelo Corelli’. Correspondence concerning the dedication of the Roman edition to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando III, is preserved in the court archives in Florence. The title-page refers to ‘Giovanni Ravenscroft, alias Rederi Inglese’, while in the note to the reader he describes himself as a ‘dilettante’, and as such he may have associated with the fashionable society of English amateurs who sojourned in Rome during their Grand Tour. Two editions of his op.2 sonatas (both c1708) mention his death, and since they appeared in London it is possible that by then he had returned to England. This set was also reprinted in Amsterdam (c1710).

Le Cène's partial reprint of op.1 as Corelli's op.7 (c1735) incensed Hawkins into singling out Ravenscroft in a damning judgment of the vogue for Corellian pastiche: ‘the natural and familiar style of Corelli's music, and that simplicity which is one of its characteristics, betrayed many into an opinion that it was easily to be imitated … but the experiment has been made, and has failed’. Ravenscroft's op.1 was among the first Roman collections to adopt Corelli's slow–fast–slow–fast sequence of movements that had previously never figured prominently in indigenous compositions. Movement types also closely follow the Corellian mould: expressive grave introductions, fugal movements, internal slow movements often in triple metre, and compound metre finales. His facile over-reliance on sequences, based on stereotyped harmonic formulas, so apparent in the fugue of Sonata no.1, replaced the much more subtle systems of melodic metamorphosis in Corelli's op.3. The op.2 dance suites even conclude with a ‘Ceccona’, no doubt a deliberate reference to Sonata no.12 of Corelli's op.2.

La sonata es la sexta, exactamente, y toca Alte Musik Köln (ensamble "hijo" de MAK, que conserva a sus continuistas; de hecho, los violines son invitados).
El disco es éste y es sumamente recomendable:


Como las melodías misteriosas fueron muy cortas, dejo la maravillosa sinfonía de Stradella como premio además a los que participaron (y que no tengan el disco):

Ahora yo.

¿Podría ser de Cesti?

No, caro Bellero. El compositor que buscamos nació más al sur.

¿Al sur de Italia? ¿Nápoles?

Te pasaste. Digamos que a mitad de camino.

Tiene que ser Roma, entonces. ¿Landi?

Es Roma, pero no es Landi.

¿Stradella?

Si. Me llegó ayer.



la interpretación, como habrás podido comprobar, no es muy pulcra, pero se deja oir, y la música me parece muy hermosa, como todo lo que he oido de Stradella.

Sí, es Stradella, ya está localizado:



Tendría que haberme dejado guiar por la voz de Carmingnani antes que meterme por otros vericuetos.

Nos hemos cruzado. Ha colgado usted la imagen mientras intentaba localizar la obra de que se trataba.

Mientras trataba de identificarlo, he escuchado algunos fragmentos de esta reedición de Arcana:



No conocía está versión, pero, a tenor de esos fragmentos, me parece muy buena.