The musical incipits catalogued in J.D. Swale’s “Section IV: Operas” from “A thematic catalogue of the music of Giovanni Legrenzi (with an introduction and commentaries)” (see pages 646 to 1057) are arranged into 12 groups (i.e., a group for each opera) and each group begins with an opus number and title (e.g., “344 ETEOCLE E POLINICE”). Act numbers (e.g., “ATTO PRIMO”) mark the beginning of a sub-group of incipits of which scenes are identified (e.g., “1.14”) when appropriate. Incipits fall into two categories, vocal and instrumental, and are marked with a lower case identification, e.g., “(a),” the name of an instrumental section (e.g., “Sinfonia”), character name (s), the bar numbers of the section, e.g, “(m. 1-5),” a quotation from the libretto (translated into English) and the scoring when this is in doubt, e.g., “(V1 V2 Bc).” The abbreviation “C” (meaning Cantus) is used in the vocal part with a C’ clef except when Giovanni Legrenzi specifies soprano. The word “Cantus” however establishes no preference for the type of voice required (e.g., treble, soprano or castrato). A commentary at the end of a group of incipits (e.g., pages 725 to 727) provide the name and origin of the text, the collection, the sources used, clefs employed in the sources, a table with the tonality of the incipits, literary references and observations concerning the group.
(opera, 2018)
