Martini, [Padre] Giovanni Battista

(b Bologna, 24 April 1706; d Bologna, 3 Aug 1784). Italian writer on music, teacher and composer. Referred to at his death as ‘Dio della musica de’ nostri tempi’, he is one of the most famous figures in 18th-century music. He had his first music lessons from his father Antonio Maria, a violinist and cellist; subsequent teachers were Angelo Predieri, Giovanni Antonio Ricieri, Francesco Antonio Pistocchi (singing) and Giacomo Antonio Perti (composition). In 1721, after indicating his wish to become a monk, Martini was sent to the Franciscan Conventual monastery in Lugo di Romagna. He returned to Bologna towards the end of 1722 and played the organ at S Francesco. In 1725 he succeeded Padre Ferdinando Gridi as maestro di cappella of S Francesco. He occupied that post until the last years of his life, and lived in the convent attached to the church. Martini received minor orders in 1725, and four years later was ordained a priest. His first extant works date from 1724 and the first publication of his music appeared in 1734, Litaniae atque antiphonae finales Beatae Virginis Mariae; only three other collections of his music, all secular, were published during his lifetime.

In 1758, at the age of 52, Martini was made a member of the Accademia dell’Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna, after presenting the ‘Dissertatio de usu progressionis geometricae in musica’. In the same year he was also admitted to the Accademia Filarmonica – belated recognition in this case, because the rules prohibiting the admission of monks had to be waived. Martini’s relationship with the Accademia is a matter of controversy. He was certainly not the author of the Catalogo degli aggregati della Accademia filarmonica di Bologna, an important manuscript long attributed to him but actually by O. Penna (c1736), though he was involved in the reworking of part of the Catalogo which resulted in the anonymous publication ‘Serie cronologica de’ principi dell’Accademia de’ filarmonici’ (in the Diario bolognese, 1776). In any case, Martini seems to have remained somewhat independent of the Accademia and its members. In 1776 he was elected a member of the Arcadian Academy in Rome, with the name Aristosseno Anfioneo.

Martini devoted himself assiduously to composing, writing and teaching, and he seldom left Bologna. He visited Florence, Siena and Pisa in 1759, and Rome on several occasions. He was offered positions in the Vatican, and possibly in Padua, but he chose to remain in the city of his birth. Although he lived to the age of 78, he apparently suffered from poor health, which may account for the fact that he travelled so little. According to contemporary accounts, Martini’s pupil and successor at S Francesco, Padre Stanislao Mattei, was alone with him when he died; Martini’s last words to Mattei were reported to have been: ‘Muoio contento; so in che mani lascio il mio posto ed i miei scritti’

Despite the lack of biographical detail, there are many descriptions of Martini’s extremely active creative life in different areas. He was a most unusual man: an indefatigable worker with wide interests and tremendous energy, and at the same time a warm and vital person. Burney wrote of him:

Upon so short an acquaintance I never liked any man more; and I felt as little reserve with him after a few hours conversation, as with an old friend or beloved brother; it was impossible for confidence to be more cordial, especially between two persons whose pursuits were the same.

The 20-year-old Mozart wrote to him: ‘I never cease to grieve that I am far away from that one person in the world whom I love, revere and esteem most of all’.

Martini refrained as much as possible from polemics and personal conflicts, but he was firm in his opinions. His relationship with Giordano Riccati in his later years and his refusal in 1776 to collaborate on a proposed Nuova enciclopedia on account of its ‘French’ orientation in music theory show a less attractive side to his character. Earlier on he had exhibited a kind of passive resistance to Rameau’s request to the Istituto dell’Accademia for an official opinion on the latter’s Nouvelles réflexions sur le principe sonore (1758–9), and had been consistently suspicious – albeit without strong scientific objections – of Tartini’s theories about the terzo suono. He maintained, however, good relationships with colleagues whose views he did not share (e.g. F.A. Vallotti and Tartini himself). His character, as revealed in the portrait by Angelo Crescimbeni (see illustration), has been described as a mixture of affability and underlying arrogance (Morelli). A degree of self-assurance derived from his vast knowledge and an undoubted generosity served as the basis of Martini’s success and fame as a teacher. Although the extent of his teaching activities with individual students is not always clear (it ranged from many years to a few lessons), at least 69 composers learnt substantially from him and 35 others received some less clearly defined instruction. Among the former were J.C. Bach, Bertoni, Grétry, Jommelli, Mozart and Naumann; Martini taught them primarily counterpoint, often preparing advanced students for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica. He also devoted some time to singing instruction, as witness a number of surviving solfeggi. Martini’s network of students was important for his activity as a collector of music and music-related documents; he probably used income from teaching to increase his music library, which was estimated by Burney at about 17,000 volumes in 1770. Personal contacts with the most famous musicians, scholars and rulers in Europe were valuable for the same purpose. Some items, including the important library of Ercole Bottrigari, came into Martini’s possession by bequest (1751); others were either purchased or exchanged for copies of his own greatly valued printed works.

One of Martini’s most important legacies is his extensive correspondence (about 6000 letters), only a small part of which has been published. Some letters were probably dispersed (or exchanged for other documents) during the 19th century. As well as including letters from such well-known figures as J.F. Agricola, Burney, Gerbert, Locatelli, Marpurg, Metastasio, Quantz, Rameau, Soler and Tartini, the collection forms one of the most important sources for the study of 18th-century musical life and thought in Italy; especially so in this respect is the correspondence with Girolamo Chiti. Martini’s library includes also collections of letters by three earlier musicians, P.F. Tosi, G.P. Colonna and G.A. Perti.

Martini assembled also a unique collection of portraits, including both contemporary and earlier musicians. In 1773 he claimed to own 80 such portraits and at the time of his death the collection numbered 300; it seems, then, that in the later years of his life a composer’s inclusion had become a much sought-after status symbol. Martini concentrated on those he considered the most celebrated ancient and modern ‘scienziati di musica’ and specifically on those who had gained renown through printed editions. Living musicians were directly requested to contribute a portrait, and substantial attention was given to the maestri di cappella of the most notable Italian churches as well as to the most important theatre composers. Foreign musicians were also included, some of whom, such as Antonio Eximeno, had been Martini’s opponents. The collection suffered some losses after Martini’s death but it was also added to during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Together with most of Martini’s library it served as the basis of the present Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale in Bologna.

Martini’s position as a music historian rests on his Storia della musica, of which he was able to complete only three large volumes which do not go beyond Greek music. His view of medieval music is revealed in the preparatory work he did in manuscript (dated c1774–84) for the fourth of the projected five volumes, which is sufficiently complete to indicate that Martini did not go beyond the traditional 16th-century schematization based on the three figures of Pope Gregory, Guido of Arezzo and Johannes de Muris. While Martini applied new standards of scholarship to previous writings (his reading of the sources, for instance, allowed him to refute the proposition that Johannes de Muris was the ‘inventor’ of musical figures), he was unable to form as comprehensive a picture as that presented by the less erudite but more forward-looking Charles Burney in the second volume of his General History (1782). Although somewhat disappointing from a modern historiographical perspective, the Storia della musica contains valuable observations on the intimate nature of plainchant (canto fermo) as opposed to canto figurato. Perhaps better than any other 18th-century writer on music, Martini expressed an awareness of the different sensibilities that regulate monodic and polyphonic, tonally orientated music, and he also propagated the conviction that, through a deep understanding of the features proper to modal music, the ancient sensibility could be perpetuated in a modern musical language adapted to the original nature of canto fermo.

Martini’s didactic approach is best represented in the two volumes of his Esemplare, o sia Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto (1774–6). This is a compendium of extracts from musical works intended for advanced students and is based ‘on the example rather than on the rule, on judgment rather than precept’ (Reich); Knud Jeppesen, however, argued that it is rather ‘a collection of intelligently commented examples of vocal polyphony than a real counterpoint handbook’ (quoted in E. Darbellay: ‘L’Esemplare du Padre Martini: une exégèse musicologique du “stile asservato”’; see Padre Martini: Bologna 1984, 137–71). Despite the apparent modernity of the approach through examples, the organization is traditional and perhaps conceptually indebted in its analytical purpose to the broader but incomplete Guida armonica of G.O. Pitoni (of which Martini was certainly aware). The whole work, but especially the first volume, represents a passionate defence of the aesthetic specificities of church styles. Martini supported the idea of multiple styles inherited from the 17th century, comparing it to the potential levelling implied by modern theories (specifically that of Rameau). The assumption that ‘the whole art of composition consists in uniting the nature of canto fermo with that of the canto figurato’ led Martini, on the one hand, to support a comparatively archaic language in sacred music and, on the other, to attribute to plainchant an ‘expressive’ character:

The canto fermo, through melody alone, through the varied distribution of intervals, arranged by step or by leap, and most of all through the different disposition [in the various modes] of the diatonic semitone, has the power to excite in the souls of listeners earnest affections and thereby to move them to piety.

Paradoxically then, Martini reveals a modern attitude in his application to plainchant of the 17th-century ‘expressive’ paradigm while at the same time cherishing an outmoded desire to perpetuate the individual character of the various modes in chant-based modern settings. Any judgment on sacred music by Martini should then keep into account his aesthetic ideals and could only be based on the retrieval of a sensibility for a canto fermo-based musical language which was already evidently fading out in his time. Martini’s compositions not based on plainchant present a considerable variety of styles, and it is not yet clear whether this diversity should be attributed to his stylistic development over the years or to the multi-stylistic approach supported in his theoretical works. His Sonate d’intavolatura (1742), possibly reflecting acquaintance with J.S. Bach’s Clavier-Übung I (Martini being one of the few non-German composers to have come into contact with Bach’s music) as well as with some of his choral works and organ pieces, are written in a luxuriant counterpoint. Martini however wrote more often in the current homophonic style based on thin textures and the supremacy of the treble. He was not interested in re-introducing polyphony (as G.B. Sammartini was, for example) or in the possibilities of sonata style. He might well be seen as a conservative composer, but in fact a simple opposition of progressiveness versus conservativeness does not account for the complexity of his relationship with tradition or of his views on the social and moral function of music (particularly that for the Catholic liturgy). Martini’s lasting heritage is perhaps best represented by the breadth of his interests (especially evident in the manuscript Miscellanee) and by the historical awareness of his (unaccomplished) projects, rather than by any individual production.

WORKS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

HOWARD BROFSKY/S. DURANTE

Martini, Giovanni Battista

WORKS

c1500 compositions are extant, and c1000 canons, mostly in I-Bc; other sources include A-Wn, B-Bc, D-Bsb, Dlb, MÜp, Rp, I-Ac, Baf, Bsf, Bsp, BGc, Fc, LT, MOe, Nc, PAc, PIst, Ps, Rsc, Vc, GB-Cfm, Lbl. No definitive catalogue exists; Busi and Zaccaria have incomplete lists, Wiechens has an extensive list of the sacred music, Brofsky (1963) a thematic catalogue of the instrumental music.

sacred vocal

secular vocal

instrumental

theoretical works

Martini, Giovanni Battista

BIBLIOGRAPHY

biography, studies

BurneyFI

GaspariC

A. Eximeno: Dubbio … sopra il Saggio fondamentale pratico di contrappunto del reverendissimo Padre maestro Giambattista Martini (Rome, 1775)

G. Della Valle: Memorie storiche del P.M. Giambattista Martini (Naples, 1785)

G. Fantuzzi: Notizie degli scrittori bolognesi, v (Bologna, 1786/R), 342ff

G. Gandolfi: Elogio di Gio. Battista Martini minor conventuale (Bologna, 1813)

F. Parisini: Della vita e delle opere del Padre Gio. Battista Martini (Bologna, 1887)

L. Busi: Il Padre G.B. Martini (Bologna, 1891/R)

F.X. Haberl: ‘Padre Giovanni Battista Martini als Musiker und Componist’, KJb, vii (1892), 1–21

W. Reich: Padre Martini als Theoretiker und Lehrer (diss., U. of Vienna, 1934)

F. Vatielli: ‘Le opere comiche di G.B. Martini’, RMI, xl (1936), 450–76

A. Pauchard: Ein italienischer Musiktheoretiker: Pater Giambattista Martini (Lugano, 1941)

E. Desderi: ‘Il concerto in fa maggiore, la sinfonia a 4 e il “Don Chisciotte” di Giov. Batt. Martini’, Musicisti della scuola emiliana, Chigiana, xiii (1956), 49–51

H. Brofsky: ‘Padre Martini’s Sonata for Four Trumpets and Strings’, Brass Quarterly, v (1961–2), 58–61

H. Brofsky: The Instrumental Music of Padre Martini (diss., New York U., 1963)

H. Brofsky: ‘The Symphonies of Padre Martini’, MQ, li (1965), 649–73

H. Brofsky: ‘Students of Padre Martini: a Preliminary List’, FAM, xiii (1966), 159–60

H. Brofsky: ‘The Keyboard Sonatas of Padre Martini’, Quadrivium, viii (1967), 63–73

B. Wiechens: Die Kompositionstheorie und das kirchenmusikalische Schaffen Padre Martinis (Regensburg, 1968)

V. Zaccaria: Padre Giambattista Martini: compositore musicologo e maestro (Padua, 1969)

G. Stefani: ‘Padre Martini e l’Eximeno: bilancio di una celebre polemica sulla musica di chiesa’, NRMI, iv (1970), 463–81

H. Brofsky: ‘Jommelli e Padre Martini: aneddoti e realtà di un rapporto’, RIM, viii (1973), 132–46

M. Huglo: ‘La musicologie au XVIIIe siècle: Giambattista Martini et Martin Gerbert’,RdM, lix (1973), 106–18

H. Brofsky: ‘J.C. Bach, G.B. Sammartini, and Padre Martini: a Concorso in Milan in 1762’,A Musical Offering: Essays in Honor of Martin Bernstein, ed. E.H. Clinkscale and C. Brook (New York, 1977), 63–8

G. Vecchi: ‘“Alcune memorie intorno alla musica figurata” di Padre Giambattista Martini’,Sacerdos et cantus gregoriani magister: Festschrift Ferdinand Haberl, ed. F.A. Stein (Regensburg, 1977), 303–19

Collezionismo e storiografia musicale nel Settecento: la quadreria e la biblioteca di Padre Martini (Bologna, 1984) [exhibition catalogue, incl. G. Morelli: ‘Modernita di Martini’, 13–35]

La musica come arte e come scienza, ricordando Padre Martini: Bologna 1984 [Quadrivium, xxvi/1 (1985)]

Padre Martini: Bologna 1984

G. Vecchi: Giambattista Martini: concerti, conferenze e convegni di studio nel secondo centenario della morte (1784–1984) (Bologna, 1984)

S. Durante: ‘Condizioni materiali e trasmissione del sapere nelle scuole di canto a Bologna a metà Settecento’, IMSCR XIV: Bologna 1987, ii, 175–89

M. Baroni: ‘Rigore e licenze dell'Accademia filarmonica di Bologna negli anni di Padre Martini’, Studi in onore di Giuseppe Vecchi, ed. I. Cavallini (Modena, 1989), 67–76

L. Callegari: ‘I primi storici dell'Accademia filarmonica di Bologna: A.M. Bertalotti, O. Penna, Padre G.B. Martini’, ibid., 53–65, esp. 60–65

G. Vecchi: ‘L'Accademia filarmonica e le sue fonti storiche: Padre G.B. Martini … ridimensionato’,Studi e materiali per la storia dell'Accademia Filarmonica, iii (1991), 3–15

R. Groth: ‘Die Bologneser Accademia filarmonica und Padre Martini’, Akademie und Musik: Erscheinungsweisen und Wirkungen des Akademiegedankens in Kultur- und Musikgeschichte: Festschrift für Werner Braun, ed. W. Frobenius and others (Saarbrucken, 1993), 135–45

L. Callegari Hill: ‘Padre Martini and the Accademia filarmonica of Bologna’, Musicologia humana: Studies in Honor of Warren and Ursula Kirkendale, ed. S. Gmeinwieser, D. Hiley and J. Riedlbauer (Florence, 1994), 457–71

source material (letters)

F. Parisini, ed.: Carteggio inedito del P. Giambattista Martini coi più celebri musicisti del suo tempo (Bologna, 1888/R)

G. Radiciotti, ed.: Lettere inedite di celebri musicisti (Milan, 1892)

L. Torri: ‘Una lettera inedita del Padre Giambattista Martini’, RMI, ii (1895), 262–86

P. Long des Clavières: ‘Lettres inédites de A.E.M. Grétry’, RMI, xxi (1914), 699–727

O. Premoli: ‘Due lettere del P. Giovenale Sacchi al P. Giambattista Martini’, RMI, xxi (1914), 728–36

C.S. Terry: John Christian Bach (London, 1929, 2/1967/R by H.C.R. Landon)

G. Pfeilschifter, ed.: Korrespondenz des Fürstabtes Martin II. Gerbert von St. Blasien (Karlsruhe, 1931–4)

M. Briquet: ‘A propos de lettres inédites d’Etienne Joseph Floquet (1748–1785)’,RdM, xx (1939), 1–6, 41–7

A. Koole: Leven en werken van Pietro Antonio Locatelli da Bergamo (Amsterdam, 1949)

S. Kastner: ‘Algunas cartas del P. Antonio Soler dirigidas al P. Giambattista Martini’,AnM, xii (1957), 235–41

R. Lunelli and L.F. Tagliavini: ‘Lettere di Gaetano Callido a Padre Martini’, L’organo, iv (1963), 168–76

E.R. Jacobi: ‘Rameau and Padre Martini: New Letters and Documents’, MQ, l (1964), 452–75

B. Betti: L'epistolario fra il Padre G.B. Martini e Don Girolamo Chiti (diss., U. of Bologna, 1968)

A. Mell: ‘Antonio Lolli’s Letters to Padre Martini’, MQ, lvi (1970), 463–77

A. Lizzi: Carteggio fra G.B. Martini e A.M. Bandini (diss., U. of Bologna, 1972)

M.V. Scarfini: Le lettere di Martin Gerbert, Charles Burney, Jean-Benjamin Laborde a Padre Martini (diss., U. of Bologna, 1972)

B. Tomasinelli: Il carteggio di Padre G.B. Martini con padre Ireneo Affò e Paolo M. Paciaudi (diss., U. of Bologna, 1972)

V. Duckles: ‘The Revival of Early Music in 18th-Century Italy: Observations on the Correspondence between Girolamo Chiti and Padre Giambattista Martini’, RBM, xxvi–xxvii (1972–3), 14–26

M. Hugio: ‘La musicologie au XVIIIe siècle: Giambattista Martini et Martin Gerbert’, RdM, lix (1973), 106–18

P.P. Scattolin: ‘Riconstruzione del carteggio di Padre G.B. Martini con G. Tiraboschi, A.M. Bandini, P.M. Paciaudi, e I. Affò’, RIM, viii (1973), 225–53

A. Schnoebelen: ‘Padre Martini’s Collection of Letters: an Overview’, CMc, no.19 (1975), 81–8

A. Schnoebelen: ‘The Growth of Padre Martini’s Library as Revealed in his Correspondence’, ML, lvii (1976), 379–97

M. Pascale: ‘Il musicista perugino Baldassare Angelini: le lettere a Padre Martini’, Annali della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia dell’Università degli studi di Perugia (1977–8)

H. Brofsky: ‘Doctor Burney and Padre Martini: Writing a General History of Music’, MQ, lxv (1979), 313–46

A. Schnoebelen: Padre Martini’s Collection of Letters in the Civico museo bibliografico musicale in Bologna; an Annotated Index (New York, 1979)

I. Cavallini: ‘Musica e teoria nelle lettere di G. Tartini a G.B. Martini’, Atti della Accademia delle scienze dell’Istituto di Bologna, classe di scienze morali, anno 74: rendiconti, lxviii (1979–80), 107–24