Giovanni Battista
Sammartini was one of the early classical composers who worked on writing
symphonies. As mentioned on Monday, I often find it easy to mistake an early
symphony score for a string quartet.
Scored for
four-part strings with a possible harpsichord, Sammartini’s Symphony No. 32 in
F major has the standard three-movement structure of that time period (see Monday’s
post). Unlike standard symphonies of today, this work takes less than ten
minutes to perform with a much smaller orchestra than what we’re used to seeing
on stages today.
Here is a
recording of Sammartini’s symphony:
What are you
initial impressions based on your modern-day experience with symphonies?
