Today was my second day at the Archive of the Schottenstift. The archivist there is very helpful and is always willing to open the archive to visiting scholars. Only one person is allowed into the archive at a time so it is wonderful to be able to visit for three whole days during my time in Vienna. I have been working with the performing parts for Missa gratiarum in detail, but today Maximilian, the archivist, let me into the actual archive. He showed me two large rows of shelves filled with boxes of performing parts. Of course there is more liturgical music composed by Caldara, but I also so saw shelves dedicated to the music of Michael and Joseph Haydn, Mozart, Reutter, a pupil of Caldara’s, and many other composers. I forgot to take a picture of the archive, but I will during my next visit.
Here is the first page of the soprano concertist’s part. A concertist sang or in the case of instrumentalists played in a small group, usually as soloists. The larger ensemble was called the ripieno which sang and played when the composer wanted a fuller sound. This naturally created the terraced dynamics of the Baroque and created the drama of the concertato style, a small ensemble contrasted with a larger ensemble. You can see that vocalists in Caldara’s period were only given their part to sing instead of being able to see every singer’s part as in a modern vocal score. What I have discovered by going through these performance parts is that they were copied from the autograph score. Certain details that are only found in the autograph score are found in these parts and not the imperial copy of the score. So the autograph probably was copied for the Schotten sometime after Caldara’s death in 1736 and before it found its way into Archduke Rudolf’s music collection. Here is a detailed snapshot of one of the two figured bass parts.
I also found two other missa solenne of Caldara which only exist in the parts found in the Schotten. On Monday I will finish my work with Missa gratiarum and will have time to look at some of the features of these two masses, Missa Crucifixus (1726) and Missa Bonae spei. My comparison of these and other missa solenne with Missa gratiarum will show if Caldara fostered a specific style referred to as Reichstile or the Imperial style.
A Research and Travel Blog by John Rakes 