Contemporary Perspectives On The Multi-Part Sonata R. 64 By Antonio Soler

Abstract

Abstrac t: From the last century to the present day, the constant increase of interest in early music, has triggered a real musicological and interpretive effervescence in anchoring in contemporaneity a distant period in the history of music. The work we are analyzing is part of the interest shown in the last century towards the creative personality of Antonio Soler. Of the total of 120 sonatas for keyboard instruments by the Spanish composer Antonio Soler, known today as Padre Antonio Soler, 103 are single-part, which was common in that era, especially in Italy and Spain. But, as other composers in the Iberian space have done - we are thinking first of all of the Portuguese composer Carlos Seixas - Soler also approaches the tripartite structure in six of his sonatas. These sonatas were published in Madrid, under the care of Fr. Samuel Rubio, in volume IV. Sonata no. 64, the one on which we stopped, from the previously mentioned volume, is composed of several parts (according to the da chiesa model), through this the composer anticipating the genre of classical sonata. It falls into a special typology that refers to the old patterns and reveals an ancient style – stile antico - writing, due to the use of polyphonic procedures belonging to the Baroque tradition. Within the architectural construction, we notice how the sonata plan includes the following sequence of movements: that the first and the second part contrast with the last through the homophone character. At the same time, we notice that these two parts, although unified by the moderate tempo, establish contrasts rhythm. From the point of view of the form, these parts fit the pattern of the sonata. The novelty of the third part stands out, the one that represents the corollary of the entire cycle of the sonata, Soler resorting here to the ample, developed, fugue form.