Giovanni Battista Draghi (approx. 1640–1708)
The soft complaining fluteAria from the ode to St Cecilia's day "From Harmony", London 1687
for alto voice, 2 alto recorders and basso continuo
Edited by Peter Thalheimer
Girolamo G 11.018, score and 4 parts, € 20,00
ISMN 979-0-50084-090-9
Preface
Giovanni Battista Draghi (around 1640–1708) was presumably born in Rimini and probably received his training in Venice, the Italian opera centre of the day. In 1663/64, he was brought to England, together with other Italian musicians, by King Charles II whose aim was to establish an English opera tradition. After only a few years, Draghi was highly esteemed in London as a composer, singer, harpsichordist and librettist. From 1673 onwards, he worked with Matthew Locke (1621/22–1677) and, in 1677, became his successor as organist to the Queen in Somerset House. In 1687, Draghi was appointed organist in the private chapel of King James II and he later served as music tutor to Princess Mary and Princess Anne.
Of Draghi’s compositions, mainly songs and harpsichord pieces have survived, together with the ode “From Harmony”, written for the Feast of St Cecilia. The ode was composed for the “Society of Gentlemen Lovers of Music” and was performed for the first time on St Cecilia’s Day, 22 November 1687, in the Stationers’ Hall in London. The work is based on the poem entitled “From Harmony” by John Dryden (1631–1700). After praising harmony in music, the poem describes the expressive capabilities, which characterise various instruments.1 In 1739, George Friedrich Handel used the same text for his Ode for St Cecilia’s Day HWV 76.The present aria – “The soft complaining flute” – is the fourth part of Draghi’s Cecilia ode. It is based on a typical English ground, a five-bar bass theme that is repeated eleven times and transposed in the middle section. The text deals with the lamentation of the recorder, represented by sighing figures and chromatic passages, as well as the gentle warbling of the lute.
The passages near the word “warbling” marked “very soft” (bars 45–46 and 50–51) form an emotional highlight. The wavy lines notated in the recorder parts demand a pulsating breath vibrato in imitation of an organ tremulant. This corresponds to the early Baroque “tremolo”, which first appears in the recorder repertoire in 1620 in works by Giovanni Battista Riccio.2
Evidence is given in the two eldest sources that the vocal part of the aria was sung at one of the first performances by the counter tenor William Turner. Nowadays, however, it can also be sung by an alto voice. English recorders of the period around 1687 corresponded to the Bressan type, of which copies are made today. These instruments were tuned to English concert pitch a1, at approximately 408 Hz.
The sources of the Cecilia ode contain no clear information concerning the instrument used for the basso continuo. The violoncello (“bass violin”) is certainly a possibility for the bass melody instrument as it regularly participated in the five-part string ensemble used in other parts of the ode. In Dryden’s poem, the lute is mentioned as a chordal instrument, as is the organ in part 6. This can be regarded as a recommendation for modern performances, although there is no actual evidence that these instruments were used in early performances of the ode.
Draghi’s autograph of the ode has been lost. The fourth movement, the aria “The soft complaining Flute”, has survived in four copies3 of the score:
A Copy of the score held in the Royal College of Music London, shelf mark MS 1106, fol. 29–74. This is entitled Sign.r Baptists Song on St. Cecilias Day 1687 Performd att Stationers Hall.
B Copy of the score of Chichester Cathedral, held in the West Sussex Record Office Chichester. The ode is contained in the collection entitled The Music Book of John Walter, shelf mark MS Cap. VI/1/1, fol. 13v–33r.
C Copy of the score held in the Royal College of Music London, shelf mark MS 1097, written by John Blow (1649–1708).
D Bodleian Library Oxford, shelf mark Tenbury MS 1226, fol. 2r–35r. A collection by John Reading (around 1645–1692), who was organist at Winchester College from 1681 until his death.Copies A and B are probably based on the same original, possibly the autograph. The discrepancies in the musical and verbal text show that copies C and D were based on the same original. The fact that the notes are not accurately aligned below one another in score C may indicate that the original consisted of a set of parts.
Our edition is based on sources A and B, which probably contain the original version. The alterations contained in sources C and D have not been taken into account. The individual annotations can be downloaded as a pdf document at:
www.girolamo.de/Revisionsbericht-G11018.pdfMy thanks go to Klaus Hofmann for his valuable advice on many points and to the libraries mentioned above for their willingness to provide copies of the sources.
Translation: Catherine Taylor
Schwäbisch Hall, August 2024, Peter Thalheimer1 Roger Bray provides more information on Dryden’s poem in: Dryden and Draghi in Harmony in the 1687 ‘Song for St Cecilia’s Day’, in: Music and Letters 78 (1997), p. 319–336.
2 As evidenced by later sources, this was performed without tongued articulation, c.f. Greta Moens-Haenen: Das Vibrato in der Musik des Barock. Ein Handbuch zur Aufführungspraxis für Vokalisten und Instrumentalisten; Graz 1988, p. 137, 253ff.
3 Some details in the description of sources were taken from the List of Sources by Bryan White, contained in: Giovanni Battista Draghi, From Harmony, from heav’nly Harmony, A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, 1687, London 2010 (Purcell Society Edition, Companion Series, Vol. 3)
Giovanni Battista Draghi
The soft complaining fluteThe soft complaining flute,
in dying notes discovers
the woes of hopeless lovers
whose dirge is whisper’d
by the warbling lute.The words by John Dryden
