Domenico Colla Explained

Domenico Colla was an 18th-century Brescian composer and performer who traveled Europe in the 1760s, performing in the most important theaters and salons.^{[1] [2]} Together with his brother Giuseppe, he was one of the Colla brothers.^[3] The brothers played in royal circles; they performed before Frederick the Great in 1765 in the palace at Sanssouci. 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.^[3] The brothers were also noted for being survivors of slavery in Algiers, rescued from it by the King of Poland.^{[3] [4]}

The brothers played the colascione and colascioncino and guitar.^[2] Domenico's name is attached to six sonatas for the smaller colascioncino.^[2]

The cocolascione was a long-necked lute (strings 100 –130 cm), possibly related to the dutar or tanbur.^[2] The colascioncino was tuned an octave higher with strings 50–60 cm long.^[2] The instruments can have two or three strings.^[2] According to the advertisement, the brothers played the two string variety.^[3]

Domenico composed music, and his six sonatas for the colascioncino may be the only works that have survived for that instrument.^{[1] [5]} Each sonata lists either the colascioncino or colascioncino of two strings.^[5]

Works

Six Colascioncino Sonatas^[5] The sonatas are set up with the colascioncino playing the melody, accompanied by a bass-ranged instrument, the colascione.^[6]

• 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

External links

• British Museum, drawing from 1749 by Ghezzi that preceded the later 1752 engraving by Oesterreich.
• RISM page for Domenico Colla; has link to pages about his works.
• Record for Colla's sonatas in Dresden library.
• Colla's sonatas in RISM.]

Notes and References

1. 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. . 2 . 10 June 2019.
2. Downing . John. In Search of the Colascione or Neapolitan Tiorba. - a Missing Link?. FoMRHI Comm. 2027. 10 June 2019. 1, 9, 10.
3. News: . For the benefit of the Brothers COLLA . The Public Advertiser. London. 18 February 1766 . 10 June 2019 .
4. Harrison . Bertha . 1 October 1906 . A Forgotten Concert Room (continued). The Musical Times . 47. 670. London. 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..
5. Web site: 6 Colascioncino Sonatas (Colla, Domenico) . . imslp.org. 10 June 2019.
6. 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.