Lodovico Giustini Essay

Lost to the Ages: Lodovico Giustini & the Baroque Era
Lodovico Giustini was born on December 12, 1685, in the town of Pistoia. Giustini lived his whole life in Tuscany, Italy. Giustini was born into a line of musicians, and he would similarly devote his the majority of his life to music. For example, Lodovico’s father, Francesco, was an organist at the Congregazione dello Spirito Santo. Lodovico would later succeed his father as an organist in 1725. Lodovico’s uncle Domenico was the composer of a mass for twelve voices and choir, and his great-uncle Francesco served for fifty years as a singer in the cathedral choir. On a similar note, Giustini would compose organ and choir music in the future (none of these works have been recovered). Despite the fact that he also composed the very first works for piano, Giustini did not

The collection made use of “ all the expressive capabilities of the instrument, such as wide dynamic contrast…” (Wiki). Giustini utilizes the polyphonic melodies liberally. Throughout the 12 Sonata, the left hand often harmonizes simultaneously with the right hand, while being a separate melody in and of itself. These types of compositions were the first of their kind for the piano. Specifically, the sonata itself emerged as a fairly new concept during the Baroque era. It remains a vague classification to this day. However, large scale compositions and works that made use of figured bass (primarily during the Baroque period) were often classified as sonatas. In Giustini’s case, his keyboard sonatas were extensive solos that did make use of the figured bass notations. These notations indicated what intervals and chords to use with a certain bass note. Said notations contributed to the overall technique and artistry forms that Giustini used to develop his unique Baroquian-Classical hybrid