Lodovico Giustini and the Emergence of the Keyboard Sonata in Italy

Abstract

The twelve keyboard sonatas, Op. 1, of Ludovico Giustini (1685-1743) constitute the earliest music explicitly indicated for performance on the pianoforte. They are attractive compositions in early classic style that exhibit an interesting mixture of influences from Italian keyboard music, the Italian violin sonata, and French harpsichord music. Their unusual format of dances, contrapuntal excursions, and novelties in four or five movements appears to have been inspired by the Op. 1 violin sonatas of Francesco Veracini, a fellow Tuscan. Although the only source of the sonatas is a print dated Florence, 1732, it is clear that the print could only have appeared between 1734 and 1740. It was probably disseminated out of Lisbon, not Florence, as a result of the patronage of the Infante Antonio of Portugal and Dom João de Seixas, a prominent courtier in Lisbon during the late 1730's.