Le opere strumentali. Serie prima: Musica per tastiera, Volume 1: Opera 1, Opera 2, Passatempo al cembalo ed. by Mario Folena, Roberto LoreggianLe opere strumentali. Serie prima: Musica per tastiera, Volume 2: [Manoscritti da fonti veneziane] ed. by Federica Iannella, Giuliana Maccaroni, and: Le opere strumentali. Serie prima: Musica per tastiera, Volume 3: [Manoscritti da fonti italiane (non veneziane)] by Elisa Fontana, Roberto Velasco, and: Le opere strumentali. Serie prima: Musica per tastiera, Volume 4: [Manoscritti da fonti italiane diverse]by Alvise De Piero (review)

While the name of Baldassare Galuppi (1706–1785) may be familiar to readers from Robert Browning’s poem A Toccata of Galuppi’s, his music is relatively little known today. He was, however, one of the most successful Italian composers of the eighteenth century. Galuppi occupied a prominent position in Venetian musical life as choirmaster of San Marco and two ospedali, achieved international fame with his prodigious operatic output, and contributed to the development of the dramma giocoso through his midcentury collaborations with the playwright Carlo Goldoni. “Il Buranello,” as Galuppi was nicknamed after his birthplace of Burano in the Venetian lagoon, was also a celebrated organ and harpsichord performer and a prolific composer for the keyboard. Although musicians today may be acquainted with some of his keyboard sonatas, few are likely to be aware of the extent of Galuppi’s impressive production in this genre, amounting to 172 currently identified works. His other extant instrumental music, similarly unfamiliar, includes nine harpsichord concertos, five concertos for one or more flutes, seven string symphonies (“concerti a quattro”), six sonatas for two violins and continuo, and one sonata for flute, oboe, and continuo.

With Baldassare Galuppi: Le opere strumentali, the publisher Armelin Musica will offer the first complete edition of this repertory, a welcome enterprise that should allow for a more detailed appraisal of “Il Buranello” as an instrumental composer. Other publications have been limited to single issues of the symphonies, and selections of keyboard sonatas and a few other works, perhaps owing to the difficulty of tackling the numerous sources, which consist primarily of un-dated manuscript copies scattered among several European libraries. The lack of a comprehensive checklist of Galuppi’s works has been an additional hindrance, despite the catalogs of 103 and 123 sonatas compiled by Hedda Illy and David Pullmann, respectively (Baldassarre [sic] Galuppi, Sonate per cembalo, vol. 1, ed. Hedda Illy, Musiche vocali e strumentali sacre e profane sec. XVII–XVIII–XIX, no. 37 [Rome: Edizioni De Santis, 1969]; David Pullmann, “Catalogue of the Keyboard Sonatas of Baldassare Galuppi, 1706–1785” [M.A. thesis, American University...