XII Sonate d’intavolatura per l’organo e il cembalo, 1742 (part III)

The Twelve Sonate d’intavolatura per l’organo e il cembalo of Giovanni BattistaMartini were printed in Amsterdam by the publisher Michel-Charles Le Cène in 1742. Despite their date of publication, however, these pieces had already in part been composed in 1736 and were certainly finished by 1740. Referred to as “sonatas” by their author, they were instead conceived and structured in the manner of suites, with five movements placed in this order: a prelude (the last sonata veers from this pattern by beginning with an allemanda); a fugue (generically called “allegro”); a slow movement (usually an adagio); and two quick movements usually composed in a dance form (corrente, giga, gavotta, minuetto, aria). These works were intended for “scholars of the harpsichord and organ, who, without traversing the arduous, should know that they may achieve a pleasant level of mastery” (as is stated in the preface to the edition). Martini’s sonatas are in actuality very complex compositions, both in their treatment of the musical material and in the technical difficulties that they present to the performer. They require a remarkable mastery of the instrument and great experience with the fugue. Martini elegantly unites the dense polyphonic writing of the late baroque—in a veritable display of contrapuntal knowledge–with contemporary tastes, in anticipation of early classicism