(From the alessandroscarlatti.co.uk website):
>>>>>”dove è segnato grave, non intendo malenconico;
dove andante, non presto ma arioso;
dove allegro, non precipitoso;
dove allegrissimo, tale che non affanni il Cantante nè affoghi le parole;
dove andante-lento, in forma che escluda il patetico, ma sia un amoroso vago che non perda l’arioso.
E in tutte l’arie, nessun malenconica.”
(Alessandro Scarlatti to Ferdinando de’ Medici, Rome 1705)
“Where it is marked grave, I don’t mean melancholy;
where andante, not quickly, but pleasing.
where allegro, not rushing;
where allegrissimo, so that it doesn’t trouble the singer nor choke the words;
where andante-lento, in a way that exludes the pathetic, but let it have an
amorous beauty that doesn’t lose tunefulness;
And in all the arias, nothing melancholy”
(Did Alessandro feel under attack about being termed a composer of melancholy music?)
All extracts from letters in the Archivio di Stato, Firenze, and quoted in Mario Fabbri, Alessando Scarlatti e il Principe Ferdinando de’ Medici, Firenze, Leo S. Olschki, 1961<<<<<
My comment: Baroque "tempi" instructions were primarily about the feeling of a piece, not a metronomic indication: allegro does not mean rushing.
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