Secular Influences in the Bolognese Sonata da Chiesa

Despite important contributions in the realms of sacred vocal music, it has long been acknowledged that the most significant factor in the rise of the Bologna School was its concentration to an unprecedented and ever increasing extent on the production and publication of instrumental music. Before the 1660s the Venetian presses held a virtual monopoly in this field, but almost overnight they were eclipsed by the Bolognese publishing houses of Pisarri, Dozza, Silvani and Giacomo Monti. The relative importance of instrumental to vocal music may be gauged by comparing the catalogues for 1621, 1649 and 1661 of the Venetian, Alessandro Vincenti, who includes between six and ten per cent of instrumental music, and those of Monti (1680?) and Silvani (1698–9) containing respectively 30 and 60 per cent. It is perhaps not so generally recognized that the majority of collections which issued with such profusion from the Bolognese presses were not designed for church use but were mainly sets of dance or chamber music. This neglect of the secular aspects of the Bolognese development has led to some fundamental misconceptions about the precise contribution of the Bologna School to late seventeenth-century instrumental forms.