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Fuori di sua capanna          Cantata for alto, recorder and continuo

Sinfonia a Flauto solo            for recorder and continuo

Jakob (Giacomo) Greber’s first recorded appearance in London is in 1703, when he provided incidental music for a play at the Lincoln’s Inn Fields theatre. His opera Gli amore d’Ergasto was the first to be produced at the Haymarket, and so inaugurated the performance of Italian opera in London. In this period his association with the singer Francesca Margarita de l’Epine was the cause of some comment. Prior to coming to London he is said by contemporary sources to have studied in Italy, but nothing is known of this period of his life. However, the fact that he was referred to in 1703 as ‘Signior Jacomo Greber’ perhaps indicates his status as an Italian composer.

On his return to Germany he served the Duke Karl Philipp first in Innsbruck and later, after Karl Philipp became Elector Palatine, in Neuberg, Heidelberg and Mannheim, where he became joint kapellmeister with Johann Hugo von Wilderer. Greber has left a modest body of compositions including several stage and celebratory works, and a small number of cantatas. The present works are based on manuscripts in the Santini collection in the Diözesanbibliothek Münster, whose assistance in providing a microform of the manuscripts is gratefully acknowledged.

Because of the existence of another manuscript of the cantata attributed to Giovanni Bononcini, doubt has been cast on Greber’s authorship. It could be that this is an example of plagiarism on the part of Greber. However, in view of the reputation later attaching to Bononcini in this respect(1), it seems likely that the reverse is possible! The manuscript itself confidently attributes the work to ‘Giacomo Greber’ in a substantial heading on the opening page, and is followed by the Sinfonia similarly titled. It would profit a copyist little to falsely ascribe a work to Greber, a comparatively unknown composer. There might seem something to be gained, however, by misattributing the work to Bononcini, a well-known composer with an international reputation. On balance it seems probable that the attribution to Greber is correct.

The cantata, Fuori di sua capanna is a simple pastoral scene of the unrequited love of the shepherd Fileno for the Nymph Lycorias. It has the structure Recit.-Aria-Recit.-Aria typical of an Italian cantata of the beginning of the 18th century.

The Sinfonia for recorder is in five sections with various time signatures. The work opens with an introduction in common time, followed by a fast movement in duple time. The final two sections in triple time and 6/8 respectively are dance like in character, with repeated sections A-A-B-B. These are preceded by an Aria movement in 3/2 time. This delightful work deserves to be better known.

(1) Footnote: : “[ Bononcini] was an active member of the Royal Academy of Ancient Musick from 1726, and it was in 1727 or 1728 that his friend Maurice Greene introduced an unsigned manuscript of In un siepe ombrosa at a meeting. Bononcini apparently claimed to be the composer of this madrigal, until at a meeting on 14 January 1731, Bernard Gates directed a performance of the same work drawn from A. Lotti’s Duetti, terzetti, e madrigali (Venice 1705). A flagrant example of the age’s ubiquitous custom of unacknowledged borrowing had been discovered, and the academy’s directors made a great noise about it in order to discredit Bononcini and Greene. Bononcini went to France for the summer of 1731.” -The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980, section on Giovanni Bononcini.

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