PDF Files	Finale Files
Score and Parts	download	download

This is the most-celebrated trio sonata in this volume of the Double Reed Archaeologist, mainly because of the fact that Igor Stravinsky orchestrated its first movement as the opening music for his ballet Pulcinella (1920). It is still unknown in what form Stravinsky received this sonata, for the only remaining 18th century copies are part books. Perhaps he was in contact with Duke Filippo Cafarelli who, in 1940, would publish this G Major sonata in score as the first trio sonata in a set of 14 he attributed to the Italian composer of opera, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736). In fact, the sonata before us is the work of Domenico Gallo, born about 1730, that is, towards the end of Pergolesi's life.

Like the sonatas of the Plà Brothers, this G Major Sonata belongs to the final phase of trio sonata composition. Its three movements are derived from both the partita and the sonata da chiesa. The first movement is set in expanded binary form (sonata form) an item one would find in a partita. The slow movement and the finale, on the other hand, are very contrapuntal and indebted to the sonata da chiesa. The finale, itself, is a fugue set in ritornello form.

I worked from Duke Filippo Cafarelli's Opera Omnia Pergolesi to create this edition. Unfortunately, Cafarelli's edition is heavily overlaid with dynamics and bowing of his own devising which I have had to remove for the most part. Also, I have created my own realization of the unfigured bass.

Cafarelli indicates that the two upper voices are for violin. To be sure, the second part does occasionally extend into the lower tessitura of the violin. But marketing practices of the time advertised such music to be playable on two violins, two transverse flutes, or two oboes over the continuo. Therefore, I have made such modifications as necessary in order that two oboes can handle the upper voices over a continuo of bassoon and harpsichord.