Grand Tour in the eighteenth century meant, above all, Italy: the advent of tourism in the modern sense of the term was born precisely in this historical moment with a journey made by aristocratic gentlemen from Continental Europe towards the Bel Paese to discover art, history and music. For an indefinite and generally very long period of time, these courageous travelers of the past, after some stops in cities such as Paris, Mannheim, Munich or Vienna, arrived in Italy following an itinerary that from Venice and Verona descended along the country to reach Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples and finally Sicily. The typical traveler, often English men, thus found himself surrounded by art, by layers of history which from Etruscan and Roman antiquity had a glorious moment in the rich palaces, squares and churches of the Renaissance time and which then flowed into the amazement of the Baroque.

Musically it went from listening to a concert conducted in Venice by Vivaldi or Galuppi in person, to the polychoral music in the Basilica of San Marco; from the symphonies of trumpets and voices in the cathedral of San Petronio in Bologna, designed for a sacred environment where the reverberation exceeds 10 seconds, to the amazement of listening to Allegri's Miserere in the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Not to mention the Venetian theatre scene, the canals on which in the evening every boat or gondola became a small concert, the serenades in the gardens of Naples and the streetmusic full of Spanish influences. Further on, the many academies held by virtuoso musicians who compete each other on the keyboards, the concerts directed by Corelli in Rome with dozens of violins and 16 double basses... A continuous musical wonder of which the diaries and chronicles of travelers of the time, influencers ante litteram, restore the memory to posterity, describing in detail particular musical events, places, works of art, dinners and banquets, daring boat journeys or carriage from which not even the young Mozart could escape, dragged by his father far and wide and for some years along the Italian peninsula so that he learned as much as possible of its culture and musical style.

Among all Richard Burney (1726–1814), traveller, musician and composer, in his publications offers us a vivid fresco of the cultural and musical life in Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, a precious source of testimonies of concerts of the time, of musicians met, full of anecdotes and details on how the music was also performed. It was thanks to Charles Burney and his chronicles that Domenico Scarlatti's fame quickly spread throughout England and publications of his sonatas flocked to London. In the wake of this enthusiasm, Charles Avison (1709–1770) published a series of Concerti Grossi “after Scarlatti (1744)”, rearranging some keyboard sonatas in the form of 7-part pieces. As English music theorist and composer, Avison played the harpsichord, flute and violin. Son of musician parents and student of Francesco Geminiani, he himself had probably studied in Italy in his youth. Author of a vast production of concerts, sonatas and trios with harpsichord, his "Essay on musical expression" tells us about his musical taste, his interest in the music of Domenico Scarlatti and in the genre of the concerto Grosso, in vogue in England after Walsh's publication in 1715 of Arcangelo Corelli's opus 6. Avison had combined the imitation of the Corellian style with the arrangement of Scarlatti sonatas which spread in England through the two volumes published by Thomas Roseingrave (1690–1766), founder of a true circle of lovers of the composer who in London in 1738 had already published the “Essercizi per Gravicembalo”. Among the subscribers of the volumes published by Roseingrave we find Geminiani and Avison themselves. The Concerto in D major op. 6 no. 6 opens with an original cantabile movement probably written by Avison himself, and then leaves room for three Scarlatti sonatas (K 29, 89c and 21): the adaptation of the form reveals the composer's expertise in the arrangement, where the final result is almost better than the original, in terms of nuances and expressive richness that the concerto Grosso manages to evoke compared to the keyboard. Grand tour also meant this: bringing back to the homeland and making it one's own, readapting it and filtering it according to the taste of the moment, the lesson learned in Italy, in this case through the sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti who even before fusing elements of Andalusian folklore into his songs and the Spanish suggestions of the guitar, he had put into music the lessons learned from his father Alessandro between Naples and Rome and the Venetian one filtered through maestro Gasparini and the many academies he attended. There is the whole musical world of southern Europe in this music, from the Neapolitan street melodies, to the galant symphony, to the nuances of the Venetian string concert.

Starting again from Naples, Johann Adolf Hasse (1699–1783) condenses in his biography and his music many of those characteristics that today we look for in a Grand Tour: the "dear Sassone" made Italy his adopted country. Introduced to music by his parents, young tenor at the Hamburg theatre and harpsichordist, he had his first opera performed in his hometown at just 18 years old. Then he arrived in Italy to study in Naples with Nicola Porpora and Alessandro Scarlatti. He later became Maestro di Cappella at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Venice where he met and fell in love with the soprano Faustina Bordoni, who would become his wife and the protagonist of an amazing career in all European theatres. A vast production of operas and intermezzi, accompanied by instrumental music and concertos, led Hasse to work in Dresden and London as well as in Italy. The Sinfonia a quattro no. 6 from opera 5, published in Paris in 1740, concentrates the best that an Italian symphony in the decade preceding 1750 could contain: the vigour of the orchestral unisons, great Venetian effect, combined with the longer and more relaxed harmonic rhythms typical of the new Neapolitan school, violin virtuosity and chain of durezze set in that contrapuntal framework capable of creating  that dialogue between the orchestral parts typical of the Neapolitan "partimento", cultivated in its music conservatories, a sought-after training place for musicians coming from all over Europe. There is Neapolitan volcanism within these symphonies, but also a more galant style, so foreign to Vivaldi and Albinoni: the phrases of the adagio are enriched with many contrasting incisions, rich in details and supports whose value extends compared to at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The new galant style reflects the increasingly modern and bourgeois society, which makes their living room in the cities the place for academies and concerts, which follows fashion and loves details, even in furnishings. And so even in music small inlays and arabesques are chiseled. The burst of energy in the final allegro reveals that Hasse himself had thoroughly learned the Italian lesson, making his own the temperament of the peninsula and its inhabitants.

The oboe was introduced to Italy from France at the end of the 17th century, at the time equipped with only two or three keys. Tomaso Albinoni (1671–1751) was among the first to compose thinking of the oboe as a solo instrument, freeing it from the yoke of a mere filling and reinforcement instrument for the strings.  In 1698 the instrument was introduced among those of the musical chapel of the Basilica of San Marco and from 1706 the registers of the Pietà also include masters and performers assigned to the reed instrument. Albinoni, who loved to define himself as a "Venetian amateur and violin musician", came from a wealthy family and cultivated composition for pleasure, not for money or personal affirmation. He reserves two collections of concertos for the oboe, op. 7 (1715) and op. 9 (1722): the latter, dedicated to Maximilian Emmanuel II of Bavaria, at whose court oboists were already excellent virtuosos, also contains the concert presented this evening, perhaps his most famous piece dedicated to the instrument.  If the fast movements still reveal an ancient and austere style, it is the central movement that looks to the future, capable of moving with the long suspended notes, its singing quality and the improvisational ability that makes the oboe in all respects the direct competitor of the violin, capable of inflections and nuances close to vocal ones. It is no coincidence that the young Handel considered it his favorite instrument and also dedicated the opening of the cantata "Il Delirio Amoroso" to it.

Remaining in Venice, 1711 marks a turning point in Vivaldi's career: the publication of the collection "L'Estro Armonico" proves to be the largest and most ambitious collection of concertos since the birth of instrumental music. In it Vivaldi summarizes his musical and compositional poetics, synthesis and overcoming of the Roman traditions of Corelli and Valentini, Bolognese of Torelli and Venetian of Albinoni. At the time the "red priest" was a violin musician and concert master at the Ospedale della Pietà, where he abundantly and regularly provided new music to the “putte” orchestra and directed the concerts at the church of the same name. The events attracted visitors from all over the world, who listened in amazement to the virtuosity of the orphans who performed from the balconies of the church, hidden by the grates.  Let's imagine the 4 violins of the famous concerto in B minor RV 580, a stereophonic dialogue between 4 soloists supported by viola and cello obbligato and in dialogue with the orchestral tutti, a sort of amplification and evolution of the concerto Grosso which opens up new possible musical spaces, from theatricality of the first Allegro, to the timbre games obtained by the 4 soloists in the second movement simply by putting together four different arpeggio modes with the bow.  Thanks to Roger's publication in Amsterdam and the various subsequent pirate editions circulating, the diffusion of Vivaldi's music in Europe was greatest at the time: it also reached the hands of the young J.S. Bach, who transcribed for harpsichord and organ many Venetian concertos, thus learning the style. From the RV 580 concerto performed tonight we have an extraordinary Bach arrangement for four harpsichords and strings (BWV 1065).

German by birth, English by adoption, the cosmopolitan Georg Friedrich Handel (1685–1759) speaks above all Italian through his music: his long visits between Venice, Rome and Naples, to study, perform operas, oratorios and serenades or research of virtuoso singers to hire for his London theatres, made his music more Italian than the original itself, balanced by a skillful blend of French and German elements, and successfully returned to the first modern audience in history - the London one, which celebrated him as an immortal “Orpheus”. The young Handel arrived in Rome between December 1706 and January 1707, finding a city in which noble palaces, courts and cardinals competed in cultural and artistic activities: opposing women singers, the popes had closed the theatres since the end of the seventeenth century, but in the privacy of palaces, in the halls or gardens, everything was possible and so serenades, oratorios and cantatas satisfied the need for theatre and spectacularism of the Roman environment. Francesco Valesio, in his "Diary of Rome", tells of a young twenty-two-year-old Saxon "who arrived in this city, an excellent harpsichord player and composer of music, who today made a great show of his virtue in playing the organ in the church [of] St. John to the amazement of everyone." At the chancellery building, Cardinal Ottoboni hosted musical events directed by Arcangelo Corelli, with the collaboration of Alessandro Scarlatti and Bernardo Pasquini. Queen Christina of Sweden and the Arcadia Academy sponsored many musical events. The young Handel must have felt at the center of a place of frenetic and excellent musical production, contended between organ performances, challenges on the harpsichord with Domenico Scarlatti, and the much vocal music that was requested of him by Cardinals Ottoboni and Pamphilj or by his patron in Rome, the Marquis Francesco Mari Ruspoli.

Handel's cantatas are called "Italian" because they correspond precisely to his first stay in Italy: written in the footsteps of Alessandro Scarlatti, at the time maestro di cappella in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, they were meant to enliven conversations and events of Roman patrons, such as the Academies of Arcadia. Almost 200 compositions of which 100 for various vocal and orchestral ensemble, 31 with at least one obbligato instrument and 66 for voice and basso continuo, seem to meet the demand for dramatic music in Rome after the closure of the theatres and testify to the novelty in the musical environment of the eternal city, intensifying the emotional reach of vocal music through instrumental effects including recitatives, ariosi, arias and symphonies. Designed for specific occasions, they were never published, nor did Handel return to the genre after this Roman interlude. Let us not forget that if he also became a great impresario in London, already as a young man Handel had intuited the "Italian business of music", moving to Venice during the Carnival opera season, and between Naples and Rome during the period of oratorios, concerts and musical serenades. In Handel's cantatas the instruments are often used in the opposite form of concertino – concerto Grosso, with larger movements thanks to the contrapuntal elaboration. Stylistic choices such as severe counterpoint, lighter arias that border on dance, unusual modulations or sudden changes of atmosphere are at the service of the poetic text. A musical material so varied that Handel often transferred it to opera arias, ariosi or recitatives.

The cantata “Il Delirio Amoroso” – 1707

An invoice for the payment of a copyist bears the date of 12 February 1707 for the cantata "Il Delirio Amoroso" written on a text by Cardinal Pamphilj, one of the composer's Italian protectors: author of texts of famous Handelian pièces such as "Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno", at the Doria Pamphilj palace the cardinal maintained a vast group of musicians, which explains the large ensemble for this cantata, probably performed by the castrato Pasqualino, the best singer of the Cappella Pontificia or perhaps by the castrato Cecchino, officially at the service of the court of Florence but on Pamphilj's payroll. The ensemble includes oboe, flute and strings, in a virtuosic style that demonstrates a young composer eager to show off and demonstrate all his skills.

The single voice is divided between narration and first-person statements: Clori was rejected by Tirsi, and after the latter's death, she imagines a journey to Hades to see and recover her beloved. However, Tirsi's continued contempt is followed by Cloris' forgiveness: thanks to her immortal love she finally guides him from Hades to the paradise of the Elysian Fields. In the wake of Orpheus and Eurydice, the journey to the Underworld can be associated with a religious, political or personal metaphorical meaning. Religiously speaking, it seems like the journey of a soul in pain who believes he has been abandoned by Christ, but having completed his journey of faith at the end he reunites with Him. A legitimate comparison since Handel will use part of the material in subsequent sacred works. As we will see later, the cantata can be given a strong political meaning.

The musical work opens and closes with two movements with the oboe, Handel's favorite instrument in his youth and capable of evoking a bucolic atmosphere. The introduction is a sonata in concertante style followed by an aria in which the violin almost seems like the soul of Clori, who first ascends upwards, and then in an orchestral unison towards the low is accompanied in the descent to Hades. Here the sadness and abandonment of Clori is conveyed by the rarefied atmosphere of the voice accompanied by the cello, in a melodic line of moving beauty interrupted by scenic pauses full of tension. The climax is then lightened by the third aria, where the sound of the flute seems like a light breeze that leads to salvation: the entrance to the Champs Elysees is marked by a French-style Entreé, with the oboe, which then flows into a triumphant minuet final. The change from the very Italian concertante style at the beginning to the French atmosphere at the end seems to be a clear political allusion: Cardinal Pamphilj, like the Medici, supported the French against the Habsburgs in the War of the Spanish Succession. From this perspective, Clori could represent France or the cardinal himself who tries to persuade Tirsi - Pope Clement XI, to the final political reunion. Refinements and intellectual games of a cultured environment typical of the baroque world.

Now all we have to do is to close our eyes and listen: we are ready for a Grand Tour in Italy through its glorious musical past.