What exactly is a baroque church sonata?

[Mandryka]

I'd always thought that the concept was formal -- something like alternating slow and fast movements. But then I read this in an essay (I've provided a link) -- the author seems confident, though I note there's no note justifying her claim

. A basic distinction was made in the 18th century between church, theater and chamber styles,
whereby each of these was associated with a specific occasion and thus a specific type of affect. In the
church style, God, devotion, suffering, pain, penance, and respectful restraint were central concepts,
while in the theater style, the entire spectrum of emotions including hatred and jealousy was on
display, and exaggeration was desired. With regard to the chamber style, music theorists of the time
emphasized subjectivity, with intimate and delicate treatment of the composition being performed.

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/08/000147580.pdf

I have started to think about this question because, while listening to Biber's Rosary sonatas, and Corelli op 5, I've been asking myself who performs these in a way which is somehow imbued with "God, devotion, suffering, pain, penance, and respectful restraint." And then there's the Bach sonatas to think about . . .

[ardcarp]

I'm a bit rusty, Mandryka, but I'm not sure I would go as deeply into the emotional content as:

A basic distinction was made in the 18th century between church, theater and chamber styles,
whereby each of these was associated with a specific occasion and thus a specific type of affect. In the
church style, God, devotion, suffering, pain, penance, and respectful restraint were central concepts,
while in the theater style, the entire spectrum of emotions including hatred and jealousy was on
display, and exaggeration was desired. With regard to the chamber style, music theorists of the time
emphasized subjectivity, with intimate and delicate treatment of the composition being performed.

Being quite literal, a Sonata da Chiesa was originally for performance in church and a Sonata da Camera was secular chamber music. Isn't the difference mainly in what they called the movements, e.g. dance names for the movements of the latter but just tempo names for the former? I'm no expert so please correct me someone if I'm talking rubbish!

[Mandryka]

I'm a bit rusty, Mandryka, but I'm not sure I would go as deeply into the emotional content as:



Being quite literal, a Sonata da Chiesa was originally for performance in church and a Sonata da Camera was secular chamber music. Isn't the difference mainly in what they called the movements, e.g. dance names for the movements of the latter but just tempo names for the former? I'm no expert so please correct me someone if I'm talking rubbish!

Well I’m not clear from the booklet essay where she gets the idea about what sort of performance is appropriate for a church sonata, maybe it’s in Mattheson.

There’s a CD of the Biber with just violin and organ - I plan on listening tomorrow to see if it’s godly!

Is there an English translation of Mattheson’s writings in English? (Preferably free and online!)

[RichardB]

Certainly in the 17th century composers were seeking to take advantage of the possibility of their chamber music being used both in liturgical and courtly settings, as in Biber's Sonatae tam aris quam aulis servientes, whose title says in so many words that the same music is suitable for both contexts, and which haven't congealed into stereotyped sequences of movements. His Rosenkranz-Sonaten are contemplations of biblical texts but also contain all kinds of forms from illustrative passages to dances. Corelli, on the other hand, was much more explicit about the difference between two kinds of formal design by designating his op.1 and op.3 as sonate da chiesa; in the following generation JS Bach divides his solo violin music into "sonatas" and "partitas" more in order to explore different structural possibilities than to inhabit different performance contexts. There remains the Austrian tradition of Kirchensonaten, to which both Fux and Mozart contributed, among others, where a short instrumental piece is inserted between Epistle and Gospel in the mass, but this is a specialised repertoire not strictly comparable with the model standardised by Corelli.

[Mandryka]

I wasn't aware of Biber's Sonatae tam aris quam aulis servientes. I wonder if, pace Gluexam, generally the same sonatas were designed to be played in church and in a domestic setting, chiesa and camera, but there were different expectations about the way they would be played -- so, to use the example in Gluexam's essay, when played at home people were expected to emphasise "subjectivity, with intimate and delicate treatment of the composition being performed", when played in church they were expected to show "respectful restraint."

I enjoyed listening to Corelli op 1 today. He's a composer I haven't explored in the past, so his music feels quite fresh to me.