Domenico Colla

Domenico Colla was an 18th-century Brescian composer and performer who traveled Europe in the 1760s, performing in the most important theaters and salons.[6][7] Together with his brother Giuseppe, he was one of the Signori Colla, or the Colla brothers.[8] The brothers played in royal circles; they performed before Frederick the Great in 1765 in the palace at Sanssouci.[2] They were in London in 1766, where it was advertised that they had performed before the British royalty, as well as other the royal families of Europe.[8] The brothers were also noted for being survivors of slavery in Algiers, rescued from it by the King of Poland.[8][9]

Domenico Colla (front) playing a two string colascioncino, with his brother playing a guitar, c. 1752.[1] Domenico played in Rome during Carnival in 1749 at the Teatro Valle and at a salon or academy hosted by Pier Leone Ghezzi.[2][3] Ghezzi drew a head and shoulders caricature of him during that trip, and an image of the two brothers playing, which Matthias Oesterreich used to create the published engraving.[1][2]
Domenico Colla and his brother performed at Hickford's Long Room in London, shown in a February 1766 advertisement. The brothers' own benefits concert was on February 18, and they also performed in other musicians' benefits concerts, including: March 17, 1766 for Gabriele Leone[4] and April 11, 1766 for Polly Young.[5]

The brothers played the colascione and colascioncino and guitar.[7] Domenico's name is attached to six sonatas for the smaller colascioncino.[7]

The cocolascione was a long-necked lute (strings 100 –130 cm), possibly related to the dutar or tanbur.[7] The colascioncino was tuned an octave higher with strings 50–60 cm long.[7] The instruments can have two or three strings.[7] According to the advertisement, the brothers played the two string variety.[8]

Domenico composed music, and his six sonatas for the colascioncino may be the only works that have survived for that instrument.[6][10] Each sonata lists either the colascioncino or colascioncino of two strings.[10]

Works

Six Colascioncino Sonatas[10] The sonatas are set up with the colascioncino playing the melody, accompanied by a bass-ranged instrument, the colascione.[11]

  • Sonata in G major
  • Sonata in G major
  • Sonata in D major
  • Sonata in E major
  • Sonata in E-flat major
  • Sonata in F major

References
  1. "Domenico con suo fratello Bresciani (Die Brescianer Musiker Domenico Colla und sein Bruder mit Colascioncino und Gitarre), Bl. 15 des "Recueil de Quelques Desseins", Dresden 1752". skd-online-collection.skd.museum. Retrieved 11 June 2019. Ghezzi developed a composition from the sketch that shows Domenico with his brother playing the guitar. A version of this representation came into the possession of Count Heinrich von Brühl. This version was used by Matthias Oesterreich as a sample for the present etching
  2. "Collection online, drawing / album". Retrieved 13 June 2019. Museum number1859,0806.108...The inscription on the present drawing states that the 'Bresciano' came to Rome...and played the two strings 'calascioncino' at the Teatro della Valle and at Ghezzi's musical academy...
  3. Nicassio, Susan Vandiver (15 October 2009). Imperial City: Rome under Napoleon. p. 103. ISBN 9780226579740. Less exaulted households held gatherings dedicated to conversation, or dancing, or music. At mid-century the artist Cavaliere Ghezzi had regularly hosted a musical academy at which amateur and professional guests entertained one another with singing and instruments.
  4. "Mr. Leone's concert". The Public Advertiser. London. 17 March 1766. p. 1. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  5. "For the benefit of Miss Polly Young". The Public Advertiser. 5 April 1766. p. 1. Retrieved 13 June 2019.
  6. Colombini, Simona (August 2012). Is the "colascioncino" the eighteenth-century ancestor of "Cremonese" or "Bresciano" mandolin? A new iconographic source, a new hypothesis of philological reconstruction (PDF) (Thesis). p. 2. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  7. Downing, John. In Search of the Colascione or Neapolitan Tiorba. - a Missing Link? (PDF) (Thesis). pp. 1, 9, 10. Docket FoMRHI Comm. 2027. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  8. "For the benefit of the Brothers COLLA". The Public Advertiser. London. 18 February 1766. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  9. Harrison, Bertha (1 October 1906). "A Forgotten Concert Room (continued)". The Musical Times. Vol. 47. London. p. 670. Retrieved 7 June 2019. Captured by some of the pirates who infested the Mediterranean and sometimes even ventured into the English channel, the brothers had been kept prisoners in Algiers, a place known but little to English people in these days and of which many strange stories were told. The King of Poland, by whom they were released from their state of slavery, was the unhappy Stanislaus Augustus, the last monarch who occupied the throne of that ill-fated country.
  10. "6 Colascioncino Sonatas (Colla, Domenico)". imslp.org. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
  11. Rudolf Lück, 1954, p.64, (RISM has quote from Lück's dissertation) Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Colascione und seiner süddeutschen Tondenkmäler im 18. Jahrhundert: Inaugural-Dissertation der Philosophischen Fakultät der Friedrich-Alexander-Universität zu Erlangen

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