G. M. Casini’s Pensieri per l’Organo (printed 1714 but at least partly performed for Alessandro Scarlatti by 1708) are competent contrapuntal exercises, based on a knowledge of Frescobaldi’s variation canzonas and possibly the Capricci as well – but no more than that. They manipulate themes, combining them with countersubjects and inversions in movements designated Primo Tempo, Secondo Tempo, and so on*, in a respectful but uninspired manner. At the beginning the twelve “thoughts” rise by finalis, from C to B-flat. Casini knows his Glareanus, but doesn’t complete a modal set, opting instead for tonality and a couple of duplications.
I touched briefly on Casini in Article 156 in connection with Albero’s Recercatas. He was organist at the cathedral of Florence – a city with ties to the Scarlattis, and with another person mentioned there, Azzolino della Ciaia, as well. Casini’s Memoria of a musical meeting on a rainy evening with Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, the “Orpheus of Florence”, and several colleagues is so interesting that I wanted to offer a complete translation here. It was discovered in the former library of the Liceo Musicale at Bologna by Mario Fabbri, still attached to the packet of music sent to Casini by Alessandro Scarlatti and passed on to the prior of San Lorenzo, at a time when Scarlatti was making an effort to regain the prince’s good graces.**
“A record for my memory: by me Giovammaria Casini, on the 13th of February 1707 ab inc.[eptione], to be passed on to to the reverend prior of San Lorenzo, who is to take charge of the things which concern him.
“As the most holy Easter of the Resurrection was approaching, I was summoned by the Most Serene Lord Prince and admitted to the rooms of His Royal Highness.
“I was upset, having arrived later than all the other excellent musicians, with whom H.R.H. is used to meet familiarly several times a week.
“The Most Serene Prince requested me to refer to a letter from Sig. Alessandro Scarlatti –– the great musician, my very close friend, who also honors Florence, a city which he almost considers his home, as being a true friend of the art of music –– since I was put in charge of directing the concerts of sacred music in San Lorenzo during the coming Lent and Holy Week, with music to be composed by Sig. Scarlatti.
“I read the letter, which had arrived with the music, in a calm voice; it said the following: ‘Perhaps His Royal Highness will deign to accept the offer of this weak example of my poor ability regarding the setting of sacred motets in the difficult style of Palestrina. I have always thought it just and honorable for a musician to employ this style and these harmonies, which is rendered necessary in certain cases for the better service of the art of music, also renouncing the delightful play of virtuoso voices or of instruments. This is the time of penitence and Tenebrae, and for the devout, of strictness and of humble reflection [di severità e di humile raccogliamento]. My most excellent lord, your [Casini’s] mastery of the art of music (which is well known to every connoisseur, and which seems to me divine, especially when you are seated at the large organ with your marvelous fugal Pensamenti, which fill the heart of every listener with such a degree of sentiment that it is constrained to find release through the eyes in tears) will enable your to purge my many defects, because your goodness is equal to your most high science. If desired, the Responses can be supported by organ continuo [sostegno nel basso per l’Organo], however the voices alone would sometimes seem to me more appropriate to the drama of the Redeemer, who was without support and renounced.’
“When my reading of the letter was over, the Most Serene Lord Prince commanded me to cause the Most Reverend Sig. Prior of San Lorenzo to receive everything necessary to have all ready for the sacred concerts. I will take care of this tomorrow when I meet the Sig. Prior.
“For the sake of my own memory I will continue to write about the royal audience: after various discussions regarding music and the voices used in its performance, we came to talk of how the language of the heart might be rendered on instruments, now with the delicate touch of an angel, now with violent eruptions of passions. And each keyboard instrument and its limitations was also discussed; we finished in praise of the large organ and the Onnicordio of Nigetti which I now possess.
“It was said that the harpsichord was inadequate to express all human sentiments. At this point Jacomo Perti spoke of string instruments united in admirable concert, saying that they could completely satisfy the human heart.
“But the Most Serene Prince wished to recall him to the subject, seeing as how we were speaking of other instruments, namely keyboards. Then we all went to see the instruments of the Most Serene Prince, and Bartolo Cristofori went on and on explaining them, especially the new ones.
“When I left the apartments of the Most Serene Lord Prince it was already dark, and outside it was raining so hard that I was quite drenched.”
Perti was patronized by Ferdinando as a composer of opera and concerted sacred music, but never had a post in Florence. At the time of this meeting he must have been visiting from Bologna, where he was the long-serving maestro at San Petronio. One can imagine him losing patience over a discussion of keyboard instruments.
To round off this contribution I offer a recording of the only decent piece found in the “Medici Harpsichord Book” mentioned in Article 156. Except for this penultimate Preludio Cantabile con Ligature, the contents, generally attributed to Ferdinando, are strictly amateurish. But here we have a small-scale masterpiece, correct in every technical aspect and musically satisfying enough to make one want to attribute it to Casini, to one of his Florentine colleagues, or to one of the many other musicians Ferdinand patronized or met on his trips to Venice.
But the period’s style, aside from Casini’s Pensieri, is most famously documented in G. C. Arresti’s undated (ca. 1697) Sonate da Organo di Varii Autori, and there is nothing in either source which approaches the thematic tightness, harmonic strength and elegant flow of this Preludio, which comes closer to Heinrich Scheidemann than to anything else I can think of. His style, of course, builds on Sweelinck, who built on his Italian models of the late 16th century – the Gabrielis, Padovano, Merulo. But this Preludio looks positively Nordic in its lack of their typical flourishes.
Continuing with speculation, but more to the point chronologically: Handel’s first stop in Italy was Florence. He was there repeatedly from 1706 to 1709, and premiered his first Italian opera “Rodrigo” under the auspices of Prince Ferdinando. Handel would surely have been asked to give a lesson or two to the harpsichordist-prince. Or perhaps he played the organ for a service in the chapel at Palazzo Pitti and improvised to everyone’s astonishment? The preludio he might have written out would have made a nice little gift for the prince’s book. And it sounds rather like the kind of thing that I think may have inspired some of Domenico Scarlatti’s polyphonic sonatas after Mimo and the Sassone met in Rome and Handel’s organ playing was declared superior.
There is an old story that Ferdinando actually met Handel in Hamburg and invited him to Florence. That is now discounted in favor of a possible encounter with Gian Gastone de’ Medici, Ferdinando’s younger brother, who eventually wound up as the last Medici Grand Duke of Tuscany. He was drifting around northern Europe after a failed marriage to a rich German heiress, at the time when Handel was at the Hamburg opera. The preludio has a distinctly Hamburg feel to it, and I’m sure young Handel would have made an effort to acquaint himself with Vincent Lübeck, by then presiding at Schnitger’s masterpiece in St. Nikolai, with Reinken at St. Catherine, and with the earlier works of Weckmann; as well as with those of the other members of the Hamburg Sweelinck school besides Scheidemann.
The authorship of this remarkable, isolated work seems destined to remain one of music history’s minor mysteries, unless someone more diligent than I finds a concordance. How it found its way into a collection of amateur scrawls is equally mysterious, but I think Handel had something to do with it.
Armistice Day, 2025
*Azzolino della Ciaia uses the same titles in his (?1727) print.
** See Mario Fabbri, Alessandro Scarlatti e il Principe Ferdinando de’ Medici, Florence, 1961.
MediciMS-Preludio" - click  to listen (mp3 file)
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