María Álvarez-Villamil – Loukia DrosopoulouBoccherini’s Symphony Op. 37 No. 2 (G 516): a newly discovered source in the House of Navascués archive in Spain

Historical Context

The private music collection of the House of Navascués contains over 1000 sources of both printed and manuscript music. The vast majority of these date from the last quarter of the 18th century and the first decade of the 19th century. The repertoire from this period consists of instrumental chamber music, primarily solo music, duets, trios and quartets, in addition to one quintet, one concerto, and a few works for small ensembles. There are two further symphonies in the collection apart from Boccherini’s: Haydn’s Symphony no. 39 in G minor (entitled Overture), and Gyrowetz’s Symphony op. 12. The vocal music in the collection consists primarily of music from well-known operas of the time.

A special predilection can be observed in the collection for the violin, the flute, the violoncello and, above all, the guitar (both solo with bass accompaniment and guitar duet), which had a pedagogical and recreational function. Dance music had its place in the collection too, alongside Spanish popular music (fandangos and seguidillas boleras) and court music (minuets and contredanses), which had acquired a great importance in high social classes.

The composers in the collection were contemporaries of the House of Navascués and include Spanish as well as composers from the rest of Europe.⁶Regarding the repertoire and composers in the collection see ALVAREZ-VILLAMIL, La colección de música de la Casa de Navascués, vol. I, pp. 140-176. The good position of the family in society, with important personal relationships and alliances, and its promotion to administrative posts at the court of Madrid,⁷Regarding the origins of the House of Navascués and its social context see Ibid., pp. 57-131. are factors that to a certain extent justify the existence within the family of a music collection with such characteristics – especially when a large part of the family’s manuscript collection was acquired in Madrid between ca. 1790 and 1808.⁸Ibid., p. 261. This period corresponds with the time when Boccherini’s music was circulating more widely in aristocratic circles in Madrid, as seen with his employment with the Countess-Duchess of Benavente-Osuna and the Marquis de Benavent.⁹See among other studies, JAIME TORTELLA, Boccherini, un músico italiano en la España ilustrada, Madrid, Sociedad Española de Musicología, 2002, and JUAN PABLO FERNÁNDEZ-CORTÉS, La música en las Casas de Osuna y Benavente (1733-1882): un estudio sobre el mecenazgo musical de la alta nobleza española, Madrid, Sociedad Española de Musicología, 2007.

It is not known how Boccherini’s symphony ended up in the collection of the House of Navascués. No direct links with the composer are known but this does not exclude the fact that this work may have been acquired through direct contact with the composer. Another possibility is that the family took advantage of its connections in Madrid and was able to secure this work through an indirect route. Unfortunately there is no inventory of the collection before 1954, which might allow us to establish whether further works by Boccherini could have once existed in the collection. The 1954 inventory of the collection, entitled ‘Indice de partituras. La [cruz]’, includes works either by a composer’s name or by an identifiable title, so this anonymous symphony, alongside other small orchestral works, and works collected in notebooks was not listed.¹⁰ALVAREZ-VILLAMIL, La colección de música de la Casa de Navascués, vol. II, appendix I (catalogue, sign.: BMCN C28), p. 323.

Preliminary source description

The manuscript set consists of 15 instrumental parts which are: violino primo principale, violino primo, violino secondo principale, violino secondo, viola prima, viola seconda, violoncello, basso di ripieno, flauto, oboé primo, oboé secondo, fagotto primo, fagotto secondo, corno primo, corno secondo. Unfortunately, as first observed by Juan Miguel Illán, it appears that the set is lacking one instrumental part, the basso di concerto part. This is conjectured from a comparison of the extant parts with the instrumentation for this symphony listed in Mastropietro’s study¹¹MASTROPIERO, Perduta, riemersa, invisibile, especially pp. 143-166., and also the existing basso di ripieno part in the set, implying the existence of another basso part.

The surviving parts of this set are primarily in the hand of Boccherini’s copyist Spanish Anonymous No. 4 (SA4)¹²The tenor clefs in the symphony parts in his hand match those of Type b. See, LOUKIA DROSOPOULOU, Boccherini and the copyists from his immediate circle, in Understanding Boccherini’s manuscripts, ed. Rudolf Rasch, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, pp. 67-108: 108.but the set also contains three parts that are in the hand of Boccherini. These are the corno primo (Figure 1) and corno secondo parts, and the basso di ripieno part.

Figure 1. The first page from the corno primo part of Symphony no. 37 no. 2 (G 516) in the hand of Boccherini. Reproduced by kind permission of the House of Navascués.

Figure 2. The first page of the violino primo principale part of Symphony no. 37 no. 2 (G 516) in the hand of Spanish Anonymous No. 4 (SA4). Reproduced by kind permission of the House of Navascués.

The parts in the hand of SA4 (Figure 2.) are copied on two bifolia, whereas the parts in Boccherini’s hand are copied on a single bifolium. In his parts, the music is copied on the recto of the outer folio, with the name of the instrumental part written at the top, unlike the parts of SA4 where only the name of the instrumental part is marked on the outer folio and the music on the verso.

All parts are on R. Romani Model B paper, according to the criteria assigned by Germán Labrador, with two stars at the top and one at the bottom of the watermark’s shield.¹³GERMAN LABRADOR, El papel R. Romaní y la datación de la música española de finales del siglo XVIII (1775-1800). Una nueva vía de investigación en la obra de L. Bocherini, «Revista de Musicología», 27/2, pp. 699-741. An analysis of the paper watermarks has identified resemblances with the watermark described in Labrador as B₂ and dated 1796/1797-1800. The paper of the symphony parts in the Navascués collection has a distinct feature in that two different watermarks and countermarks are interchanged. We find mark 6 together with countermark φ; and mark g with countermark V/V’). One of the countermarks, identified as V’, has lost the ‘I’ of the name so that only ‘R. Roman’ can be read.¹⁴Regarding the R Romani paper in the sources of the Navascués collection and the correspondences with the models studied by Germán Labrador see ALVAREZ-VILLAMIL, La colección de música de la Casa de Navascués, vol. I, pp. 229-240.

The name of Boccherini is not written on any of the performance parts – unlike in other instrumental parts of his works, where usually the genre and instrumental part is marked on the outer page of the part, and his name and employment status below that. We would expect his name to have been written on the title page of the set, which would also have listed the title of the work, the instrumentation, and other wording below this, such as his employment positions, as is the case with other sets of parts of his works. This title page appears to have been lost and is the reason this work has remained unidentified and unnoticed in the collection for all this time. It is possible that the title page of the symphony would have been marked on the outer page of the missing basso di concerto part, as is often the case with sets of parts of Boccherini’s works, where the instrumental part with the title page served as a wrapper keeping all remaining parts together.

It is worth noting the similarities in appearance that these parts share with Boccherini’s manuscript parts of his works that are now in Paris in the Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra. Although SA4 did not copy any parts in Boccherini’s symphonies that are held in Paris, he did copy most of the scores of Boccherini’s Arie Accademiche that are now in the Bibliothèque-musée de l’Opéra (Reserve 506 (2-12)) and the Département de la Musique MS-9897. It appears therefore that the manuscript set in the House of Navascués collection shares a similar context with other surviving performance parts of Boccherini’s works in Paris.