This is a personal page intended to pool my observations regarding the works of Domenico Dragonetti.
To date, there has been no complete catalogue of Dragonetti's works, only incomplete attempts at them and sometimes merely stated intentions. Here are some relevant publications.
Many of the British Library manuscript volumes contain a listing of contents, with incipits. These sometimes are and sometimes are not in Dragonetti's handwriting; they usually cover the entire volume but occasionally might not; and they will often be numbered. Some are even explicitly labeled thematic catalogues. These contemporary catalogues are important sources and could provide a common baseline for cataloguing Dragonetti's works.
However, one needs to remain critical. The purpose of most of these catalogues seems to be merely to provide an overview of the volume's contents, with the numbering following the order of the pieces within that volume. The same double bass solo could show up as No.4 in a volume of quintets, No.2 in a volume of orchestra arrangements, No.14 somewhere else still, and so forth. Moreover, there could be multiple independently numbered listings of similar compositions, so a "quintet No.4" may refer to two different pieces depending on which specific volume was meant.
Below is a collection of all catalogue listings in the British Library manuscript volumes. You may have to click through multiple times to get the full resolution image.
| Image | Volume | Contents |
|---|---|---|
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Add MS 17726 | Actually bound in Add MS 17826, but the first page lists pieces from Add MS 17726, namely 20 quintets and 6 pieces "a tutta orchestra". The second page is assumed to be part of the same catalog but the contents are unclear. |
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Add MS 17727 | String quartets (incomplete) |
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Add MS 17821 | Double bass solos, numbered 2 through 32. |
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Add MS 17822 | A listing of the random assortment of copies and sketches of solos contained in this volume, and a numbered list of twelve solos of which some are missing. |
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Add MS 17823 | Unnumbered listing of Sechter's piano arrangements in this volume, and a string quartet |
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Add MS 17824 | Partially numbered list of the piano arrangements in this volume |
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Add MS 17826 | Numbered list of the piano arrangements in this volume |
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Add MS 17827 | Numbered list of four miscellaneous solos in this volume |
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Add MS 17828 | Cover page of the double bass part, showing incipits for the movements of the arranged quintet in this volume |
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Add MS 17829 | Unnumbered listing of the contents of this volume |
These catalogues don't all have an equal weight. I would like to highlight the catalogue for Add MS 17821, a volume containing nothing but solo double bass parts for over thirty solos. As usual, they are numbered sequentially in order of appearance. However, it contains a continuous numbering that is far longer than in any other catalogue, and the same numbering is adopted for the same piece in a different volume on at least one occasion: the piece at Double Bass Concerto No.6 in D major (the IMSLP page name is a misnomer, more on that below) is no.28 in this catalogue. A set of orchestra parts to accompany this solo in Dragonetti's hand and also annotated with the number 28 is found in Add MS 17832, a completely different volume, among sets of parts for other works. The same is true for orchestra parts for solos no.22 and no.15 in Add MS 17832. One could theorize that Add MS 17821 was an effort by Dragonetti to have a finalized and authoritative version of his solos and with a definitive numbering scheme, so that an accompaniment found elsewhere could easily be identified as, for instance, "the orchestra parts for solo no.28". The absence of no.1 in this catalogue and volume might corroborate this; perhaps there was a solo no.1 and Dragonetti either lost the score and thus could not make another copy, or otherwise didn't consider it within the scope of this volume. If the purpose of the catalogue and volume were just to provide an overview of the volume's contents, then surely he would have started the numbering at 1.
There are, however, counterexamples: solo no.15 appears with the number 11(?) in Add MS 17829 and solo no.18 (Double Bass Concerto No.5 in G major) is numbered 15 in Add MS 17822. What's more, the numbers 18 and 15 appear together for this latter piece in Add MS 17821, the very volume this catalogue is from. That said, if for no other reason than its sheer size and therefore being the most complete enumeration of the double bass solos, the catalogue for Add MS 17821 seems to be a very important source, and it would be worthwhile to investigate precisely where else this numbering is followed and where it is not, and to check which solos may be missing from it, and perhaps figure out which solo was no.1. It is not the "famous solo" (Double Bass Concerto No.1 in G major), because that one is accounted for as no.14. The front of Add MS 17832 features a "Solo No.1" as a set of parts for double bass and orchestra; however, the first movement (Adagio) is from solo no.29, and the second movement (Presto) is from solo no.5. One could theorize that the original solo no.1 was these two movements, but Dragonetti later became dissatisfied with the combination and ended up reusing the movements in future works, thereby obsoleting Solo No.1.
On the other end of the spectrum is a catalogue like that of Add MS 17824. This one seems to be in Novello's hand and might have been created after Dragonetti's death. In his will, Dragonetti commissioned arrangements of his solos with piano accompaniment, and presumably this volume contains some of them. What's curious is that no.10 in this catalogue seems to be combining two pieces together; they are also found as orchestral scores in Add MS 17726 (Double Bass Concerto No.4 in G major and Double Bass Concerto No.5 in G major), where it isn't clear where one piece ends and the next one begins. How do we know that they are separate pieces? Because the catalogue for Add MS 17726 - in Dragonetti's hand! - clearly lists them as such. Novello did come across this catalogue but perhaps he didn't recognize which manuscripts it pertained to, calling it an "exceedingly rare and curious list". And then, failing to use this information, Novello (and maybe the arranger himself as well) simply guessed which movements belonged together and got it wrong. The catalogue for Add MS 17824 should therefore be considered spurious, at least insofar as it pertains to Dragonetti's works as he authored them. The autograph catalogue for Add MS 17726 ended up being misfiled in Add MS 17826, another volume of piano arrangements.
On a final note, there is a collection of very short piano pieces at the end of Add MS 17823, numbered 88 through 126. I initially mistook this for a thematic catalogue, but the musical fragments are not actually incipits. These could have been copies of small dance tunes to be played at parties.
My original reason for becoming interested in Dragonetti's works was a search for solo works for double bass with orchestral accompaniment. Although my interests have shifted a bit, I do want to detail my findings and theories regarding these pieces as I have spent some time with them and there aren't too many.
Dragonetti's known works for double bass and orchestra currently number 12. 5 of these are explicitly titled concertos and have three movements in the traditional fast-slow-fast form with alternating tutti and solo passages; the other 7 are really just some of the many double bass solos that appear throughout the manuscripts under various configurations (as part of a string quintet, or the solo part by itself), here given an orchestral accompaniment. These solos are not concertos in either name or form and consist of either two movements (a shorter, introductory slow movement and a long and virtuosic fast movement) or a sequence of many short movements, typically with the double bass playing the lead throughout.
The list below includes IMSLP page names but these only serve as links and should not be taken as authentic titles. I had to choose some of these titles when creating the work pages in order to (barely) avoid naming conflicts between them.
The five concertos are:
Six of the other seven pieces, namely the solos with orchestral accompaniment, are all bundled together as full scores in Add MS 17726, preceded by a large collection of solos in the form of string quintets. These scores are non-autograph, but the solo parts and sometimes even the orchestral parts appear in Dragonetti's hand in other volumes. Even though the IMSLP page names have them as concertos, they should really not be referred to as such (and I apologize for having created them in this way). The pieces are as follows:
The last piece is likewise a double bass solo that has been given an orchestral accompaniment, but not in the preceding collection:
Here, I will permit myself some conjectures. Since the Concertos maintain a stricter classical style and display more technical virtuosity, I believe they were written earlier than the other works in his collection, possibly even during his time in Venice, when he would have needed solo pieces to make a name for himself. He took them with him to London and must have (re)used some of them in the benefit concerts which took place early on during his time there. The program notes mention a concerto, but sadly no indication as to which one(s). The fact that we have orchestral parts, especially in the hand of what looks to be a professional copyist which would not have been commissioned on a whim, corroborates this.
By contrast, the many double bass solos, including the seven with orchestral accompaniment, could have been written throughout his time in London, where his solo appearances moved to private home performances and soirées among the English dilettantes, who appreciated Dragonetti for his musicality rather than just his technical prowess. These pieces are not as long, and are altogether lighter music. Perhaps some of these were originally created with no accompaniment or as string quintets and then rearranged with an orchestra, or the orchestral accompaniment came first, but the pieces were nonetheless conceived as intimate and friendly to domestic performance.
I believe the sixth solo with orchestra bucks this trend. Although it isn't written like a concerto, it does return to a grander form of expression, with more thought put into the role of the orchestra. I believe this piece displays a proficiency at orchestral writing that isn't seen in Dragonetti's concertos from earlier and could've been accumulated through experience and through exposure to Haydn and Beethoven's works as part of his career as an orchestral bassist in London. That said, it does also appear as an isolated bass part, seemingly with changes to made to enable a performance without accompaniment; Novello notes that Dragonetti came to his home to play it on request and that he considered it "one of the most masterful, original and characteristic movements that Dragonetti ever composed" and that the whole solo is "one of my special favorites". Still, it is my personal theory that the matured Dragonetti wanted to compose one more grand concert piece using the full color palette of the orchestra, not by going back to the concerto form, but as an evolution of the dilettante style that had been the result of his time in London. There are orchestral parts, but they are in Dragonetti's own handwriting, so he did go through at least the trouble of personally copying out the parts in an effort to perform the piece with orchestra; it is possible that this never succeeded.
One last comment: There is a pervasive, unsubstantiated idea that the Double Bass Concerto, Op.3, by Serge Koussevitzky was actually orchestrated by Reinhold Glière, maybe because they think Koussevitzky wasn't smart enough to orchestrate a piece, or something (looking at the orchestral score for the concerto, it's really not that impressive and wouldn't have required the involvement of someone like Glière). I have not yet seen anyone raise the possibility that Dragonetti didn't actually orchestrate his works and that someone else did it for him, but I would like to argue in advance that I see no reason for believing so. If it matters, Add MS 17832 includes a small schematic of horn harmonics, seemingly as a memory aid.
List of works by other composers which Dragonetti was involved in, either by having premiered them or by having the double bass part written for him.
Works with double bass parts written with Dragonetti in mind:
