Sonata prima for recorder

The 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 he can be placed in Venice in the early 1600s based on circumstantial evidence. He is listed as a kind of “bandleader” in Venice in a document from 1629, and he likely worked alongside Claudio Monteverdi at the basilica of St. Mark’s. Castello’s extant music demonstrates the new style of early Baroque monody, which features a solo line supported by chordal accompaniment. The polyphonic complexities achieved by previous generations is here simplified and concentrated into one active line. 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 Prima unfolds as a series of alternating fast and slow sections, which also usually express a change from duple to triple rhythms. Recurring harmonic progressions make the Sonata sound like a theme and variations. But the striking first and last phrases of the piece make us eager to know more about this shadowy figure.

(c) Jason Stell