Sonata No. 12 for recorder

Italian composer Dario Castello (c. 1590-c. 1658) is one of those countless musicians who, but for the survival of precious few works, would be entirely lost to history. Some thirty pieces survive, and circumstantial evidence places him in Venice in the early 1600s. He is listed as a kind of Venetian bandleader in a document from 1629, and he likely worked alongside Monteverdi at the basilica of St. Mark’s. Castello’s extant music demonstrates early Baroque monody, which features a solo line supported by chordal accompaniment. Polyphonic complexities favored by previous generations are here simplified into one or two active lines. We take this melody and accompaniment style for granted today, but it is always worth remembering that it, too, had to be essentially invented. That invention took place in Italy around 1600. Castello’s Sonata No. 12 (1629) unfolds as a series of alternating fast and slow sections, which also include a change from duple to triple rhythms. The two solo lines—here recorder and violin—often imitate each other and definitely lead the music forward. Castello closes nearly every section with virtuosic, ornate cadenzas for the soloists that create a wonderful contrast against the held tones of the continuo accompaniment.

(c) Jason Stell