TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
9th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music
ABSTRACT
An analytical approach to the instrumental chamber music of Antonio Bertali
(1605-69)
Niels Martin Jensen
In 1990 at the Fourth Biennial Conference on Baroque Music I gave a preliminary
survey of the manuscript sources of the Italian composer Antoni Bertali’s
instrumental music. There still exist many problems of authenticity concerning
both the manuscripts with his music and the printed sources. However, an
analytical approach to his instrumental chamber music may contribute both
to the clarification of the actual amount of extant works by this influential
composer and to a more well-founded understanding of his stylistic influence,
- although “ce qui n’est pas une petite affaire” as Sébastien de
Brossard commented on the collection Prothimia suavissima (1672)
in his catalogue from 1724-25.
Bertali’s music went from Vienna through central Europe (the collection
of Karl Liechtenstein-Castelcorn at Kromeriz ) and up north to Stockholm
and Copenhagen, a city which in the 1660's became a melting pot of contemporary
tendencies within instrumental music with composers such as Kaspar Förster
Jr., Johann Philipp Krieger, Christian Geist and the young Buxtehude being
active there or in the neighbourhood of the Danish capital.
Last updated on 14 April 2000 by Yo
Tomita