[이탈리아]사베리오 메르카단테 (Saverio Mercadante)

 

Saverio Mercadante in a portrait by Andrea Cefaly (Museo di San Martino, Naples)

 

Giuseppe Saverio Raffaele Mercadante (baptised 17 September 1795 – 17 December 1870) was an Italian composer, particularly of operas. While Mercadante may not have retained the international celebrity of Gaetano Donizetti or Gioachino Rossini beyond his own lifetime, he composed as impressive a number of works as either; and his development of operatic structures, melodic styles and orchestration contributed significantly to the foundations upon which Giuseppe Verdi built his dramatic technique.

 

<우리말 자료 있는 곳 -  cafe.daum.net/happyhomefeel/Mqlg/2962   중년의 행복방>

 

<Biography>

Early years

Mercadante was born in Altamura, near Bari in Apulia; his precise date of birth has not been recorded, but he was baptised on 17 September 1795. Mercadante studied flute, violin and composition at the conservatory in Naples, and organized concerts among his compatriots.^[1] The opera composer Gioachino Rossini said to the conservatory Director, Niccolo Zingarelli, "My compliments Maestro – your young pupil Mercadante begins where we finish".^[1] In 1817 he was made conductor of the college orchestra, composing a number of symphonies, and concertos for various instruments – including six for flute about 1818–1819, and whose autograph scores are in the Naples conservatory, where they were presumably first performed with him as soloist.^[1]

 

The encouragement of Rossini led him to compose for the opera, where he won considerable success with his second such work (Violenza e Constanza), in 1820. His next three operas are more or less forgotten, but an abridged recording of Maria Stuarda, Regina di Scozia was issued by Opera Rara in 2006. His next opera Elisa e Claudio was a huge success, and had occasional revivals in the 20th century, most recently by Wexford Festival Opera in 1988.

 

He worked for a time in Vienna, in Madrid, in Cadiz, and in Lisbon, but re-established himself in Italy in 1831. He was invited by Rossini to Paris in 1836, where he composed I Briganti for four of the most-known singers of the time, Giulia Grisi, Giovanni Battista Rubini, Antonio Tamburini and Luigi Lablache, all of whom worked closely with Bellini. While there, he had the opportunity to hear operas by Meyerbeer and Halévy, which imparted a strong influence on him, especially the latter's La Juive. This influence took the form of greater stress on the dramatic side.

Return to Italy, 1831

Composer
Saverio Mercadante

 

When Mercadante returned to Italy after living in Spain and Portugal, Donizetti's music reigned supreme in Naples,^[2] an ascendancy which did not end until censorship problems with the latter's Poliuto caused a final break. But Mercadante's style began to shift with the presentation of I Normanni a Parigi at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1832: "It was with this score that Mercadante entered on the process of development in his musical dramaturgy which, in some aspects, actually presaged the arrival of Verdi, when he launched, from 1837 on, into master works of his artistic maturity: the so-called "reform operas".^[2]

 

The beginnings of the so-called "reform movement", of which Mercadante was part, arose from the publication of a manifesto by Giuseppe Mazzini which he wrote in 1836, the Filosofia della musica.^[3]

In the period after 1831 he composed some of his most important works. These included Il giuramento which was premiered at La Scala in November 1837. one striking and innovative characteristic of this opera has been noted:

..it marks the first successful attempt in an Italian opera premiered in Italy of depriving the prima donna, or some other star singer, of her until-then inalienable right of having the stage to herself at the end. By doing this, Mercadante sounded what was to be the death knell of the age of bel canto.^[4]

Early in following year, while composing Elena da Feltre (which premiered in January 1839), Mercadante wrote to Francesco Florimo, laying out his ideas about how opera should be structured, following the "revolution" begun in his previous opera:

I have continued the revolution I began in Il giuramento: varied forms, cabalettas banished, crescendos out, vocal lines simplified, fewer repeats, more originality in the cadances, proper regard paid to the drama, orchestration rich but not so as to swamp the voices, no long solos in the ensembles (they only force the other parts to stand idle to the detriment of the action), not much bass drum, and a lot less brass band.^[4]

Elena da Feltre followed; one critic found much to praise in it:

A work of harmonic daring, subtlety and originally orchestrated, it suddenly makes sense of oft quoted comparisons between Mercadante and Verdi. It has the overall coherence one looks for and finds in middle and late Verdi – a surprising anticipation, for Elena da Feltre dates from 1838, the year before Verdi's first opera^[5]

These temporarily put him in the forefront of composers then active in Italy, although he was soon passed by Giovanni Pacini with Saffo and Giuseppe Verdi with several operas, especially Ernani.

Later works

Mercadante in middle age

 

Some of Mercadante's later works, especially Orazi e Curiazi, were also quite successful. Many performances of his operas were given throughout the 19th century and it has been noted that some of them received far more than those of Verdi's early operas over the same period of time.^[6]

Throughout his life he generated more instrumental works than most of his contemporary composers of operas due to his lifelong preoccupation with orchestration, and, from 1840, his position as the Director of the Naples conservatory for the last thirty years of his life.^[1] From 1863 he was almost totally blind.

 

In the decades after his death in Naples in 1870, his output was largely forgotten, but it has been

occasionally revived and recorded since World War II, although it has yet to achieve anything like

the present-day popularity of the most famous compositions by his slightly younger contemporaries: See Donizetti's compositions and Bellini's compositions.=============

 

The French soloist Jean-Pierre Rampal notably recorded several Mercadante concertos for flute and string orchestra, including the grand and romantic E minor concerto, which has since gained

some popularity among concert flautists.

 

1. Allegro maestoso
2. Largo
3. Rondo
Jean-Pierre Rampal Flute
I Solisti Veneti
Claudio Scimone Conductor
Rec.: 1973

 

사베리오 메르카단테는 1816년에서 1829년까지  나폴리의 성 세바스찬 학교에서 수학하였는데  여섯개의 플루트협주곡(이 작품들은 그 학교에서 그가 연구한 악기에 대한 탐구를 잘 보여준다)은 아직 학생 때였던 1819년경에 만든것이라고 합니다. 이 시기 메르카단테의 음악양식은 로씨니의 것과 아주 가까운 형태를 보였는데 플루트협주곡 e 단조는 마치 하위문화처럼 보인다. 그리고 그것은 19세기 이태리 음악을 지배하던 오페라의 바다 한 가운데 떠있는 기악의 섬이라고도 할수있다. 이 독특한 영역에 끼친 메르카단테의 영향은 그보다 젊은 세대인 스감바티나 보시,마르투치 같은 사람들에게서 뚜렷하게 나타난다. 이 기악곡들은 주로 음악원에서 그 정박지를 찾았는데, 그곳에서는 시험곡이나 작곡 연습을 위해서 이런 곡들을 만들어야 했기 때문입니다. 메르카단테의 협주곡은 고전적 형식으로, 베토벤과 클레멘티에서 훔멜과 파가니니에 이르는 그와 거의 동시대인의 작품을 모델로 한 3악장의 작품입니다. 여기서 파가니니의 모델이란 기교성을 의미하는데. 1악장에서 나타나는 한 옥타브나 그이상의 멜로디 비약이라든가, 2악장에 보이는 서정적인 라르고의 현란한 수식,더 나아가 명확한 이중 붓점 리듬과 현란한 세잇단음표 악절을 도입한 분명한 론도 루소의 쾌활한 스케르쪼 피날레 등에서 이 점은 잘 드러난다. 1,3악장에서는 주조인 E장조의 짧고 아름다우며 대조적인 부분이 있는데, 이곡이 플루트 협주곡 레퍼토리에 항상 포함되는 것도 바로 이 부분 때문이다. 플루트는 새소리와 같은 포근하고 명랑한 소리. 오보에는 낭랑하지만 쓸쓸한 기운이 감도는 소리. 클라리넷은 미끈한 멋쟁이지만 곧잘 심각해지는 신사. 바순은 내성적인 노인같지만 고소하고 달콤한 소리. 이렇게 목관악기의 소리를 표현한다.(메르카단테의 마단조 (플릇곡)1,2,3악장 곡해석 부탁드립니다. 메르카단... 2005.10.19 중)

 

Raffaele Trevisani - Flute
Martin Kos - Concertmaster
Suk Chamber Orchestra