Gaetano Brunetti enjoys the dubious distinction of being best known for the lack of circulation of his music in his lifetime. While several sets of chamber music did appear in print, none of his work in the larger instrumental genres in which he composed most prolifically – quartet, quintet, symphony – was published. And this is not a situation that has been seriously remedied since. An important exception was the 1979 edition by Newell Jenkins, Gaetano Brunetti: Nine Symphonies, which appeared under the umbrella of Barry S. Brook's monumental The Symphony 1720–1840 (series A, volume 5 (New York: Garland)). This immediately made clear that Brunetti was at the very least a figure to reckon with, and Jenkins included a thematic index of thirty-seven symphonies as well as offering substantial stylistic commentary. More recently, Germán Labrador's Gaetano Brunetti (1744–1798): catálogo crítico, temático y cronológico (Madrid: Asociación Española de Documentación Musical, 2005) represents a milestone and essential point of reference for future efforts. Since then nine of the string quartets have been published in two editions by Raúl Angulo (Santo Domingo de la Calzada: Fundación Gustavo Bueno, 2011 and 2012), but the current edition tops that by including these works in a comprehensive sequence of the last sixteen quartets, written between 1785 and 1793.

Trying to divine the reasons why Brunetti's work should have remained ‘hidden’ during his lifetime is an interesting pursuit. The usual assumption has been that publication was embargoed by virtue of the composer's being employed in various capacities at the royal court in Madrid under first Carlos III and then Carlos IV – that the music he wrote was effectively ‘for royal pleasure’ alone. A parallel might be drawn with the case of Domenico Scarlatti, whose position at the same court several generations earlier also seems to have meant that he was not at liberty to publish his keyboard sonatas. (The one clear exception, the beautifully produced edition of the Essercizi that appeared in 1738 or 1739, was occasioned by Scarlatti's being knighted by his former employer King João V of Portugal.) But that rather skirts questions of agency and intent, and in their Introduction Miguel Ángel Marín and Jorge Fonseca are unwilling to accept such a straightforward equation. They point out that contemporaries such as Haydn and – closer to home, of course – Boccherini ‘were also bound to the old systems of patronage . . . and created most of their works in the shadow of their patrons’ yet were not forbidden from negotiating the sale of their music, even in the case of Haydn prior to his new contract of 1779, when officially at least he was not allowed to publish his work. The editors suggest that Brunetti was ‘unable or unwilling to challenge the king's exclusive enjoyment of most of his music’ (xxv), with ‘unwilling’ suggesting what may seem unlikely to us – that the composer was unambitious, not concerned to secure a wider reputation in the musical world.

That notion receives something of a setback when one turns to Brunetti's string quartets. Of the fifty surviving works, the first thirty were grouped into sets of six. Opuses 2 and 3 were written in 1774, Op. 4 in 1775 and Op. 5 in 1776. A further set, l174–179 (numbering according to Labrador's catalogue), was dedicated to the Duke of Alba but has no opus number. These opus numbers give pause for thought. While they do partially conflict with the numbers 1 to 3 given to items that were actually published (six string sextets made up Op. 1, and two sets of six trios appeared as Op. 2 and Op. 3), can one believe that the composer created these groupings and assigned them opus numbers for his personal satisfaction alone rather than with an eye to publication? Although Marín and Fonseca do not entertain this latter idea, it is strengthened when one considers the publishing convention of the time, according to which opus numbers were assigned purely to sets of instrumental works that were being offered for sale. Sets almost always came in multiples of three, with six being the most common multiple in the later eighteenth century.

Trying to discern any firm prospective groupings in the remaining twenty quartets is problematic, and Marín and Fonseca devote considerable attention to the possibilities, using as a guiding principle the fact that Brunetti kept to a set number of movements per work in the established groups of six (this varied from two up to four). The situation is especially complicated in the case of the last ten works, whose Labrador numbering, according to the editors, does not match the chronology suggested by the sources. The sources used for the edition are Brunetti's autograph notebooks (for the late quartets these all now reside, with one exception, at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) and four partbooks containing all the quartets that were copied in France in the mid-nineteenth century (now at the Library of Congress). These partbooks once belonged to the library of Louis Picquot, biographer of Boccherini. After Picquot's death in 1870 they were acquired by Louis Labitte, who compiled a catalogue of all Brunetti's works based on the collection. While they consider the case that the final ten quartets represent ‘two opuses that were never completed’ (xxxi), in the end Marín and Fonseca feel there is no conclusive evidence, and that the quartets are better conceived as separate works until future research can prove otherwise. It is also possible that, at this advanced stage of his career and with no prospects of publication, for whatever reason, the composer had ceased to set much store by ‘opus planning’.

It is a more detailed level of planning, that of the individual movement, that soon arrests the attention of the score-reader. Above all in sonata-form structures, which are by no means confined to first movements, the composer's approach to recapitulations is highly varied. The familiar double return – of the first theme in the tonic – is just one possibility. Brunetti may also begin the reprise with the second theme (as in l196/i and l198/i) or midway through the second theme group (l190/i), while in l194/i, after a ‘false reprise’ early in the second section, the recapitulation begins with bars 3–4 of the opening subject. In l192/i, on the other hand, there is a double return, but then the three sections of the second group are presented in reverse order. In addition, by the point at which we hear thematic material returning in the tonic, the key itself has often already been well re-established (in l195/i the tonic returns in bar 100, but the first group not until bar 119), and often enough there is even a cadence in the tonic before a thematic reprise (l184/iv) rather than any sort of ‘standing on the dominant’. Brunetti does not figure in the recent magnum opus on sonata-form structures, James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). While of course no quartets would have been readily available to these authors for study, Brunetti's symphonies, which exhibit similar variety in this regard, would have offered many late-century examples of their ‘Type 2’ sonata structure, which lacks a double return. This is all the more noteworthy since Hepokoski and Darcy describe this formal practice as ‘already waning’ by century's end (Elements of Sonata Theory, 364).

Furthermore, there is no question that Brunetti approached the larger-scale shaping of his movements with eyes wide open. A wealth of symphonies by the likes of Dittersdorf, Pleyel, Mozart, Paul Wranitzky and above all Haydn was held in the royal collection at Madrid and, more importantly, these works were performed too. (See David Wyn Jones, ‘Austrian Symphonies in the Royal Palace, Madrid’, in Music in Spain during the Eighteenth Century, ed. Malcolm Boyd and Juan José Carreras (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 125–143.) Thus Brunetti would have been well aware of the predominance of double-return structures, and yet he often chose a different kind of shaping – a shaping that may entail an elongation of central developmental process and proportionate reduction of large-scale rhyme or resolution.

But what we might want to describe as ‘formal freedom’ coexists with the tightest control of thematic invention. The level of economy often surpasses that of the famously miserly Haydn, and even the trios of those quartets that feature minuets tend to rework minuet material rather than showing the customary thematic independence. ‘Monothematic’ might well be a misleading description, though, since the point, as with Haydn, often seems to be to demonstrate discursive flexibility: to show that the same material can fulfil various formal functions or form a part of different expressive gestures. The finale of l199, with its many permutations of a simple rising-third motive, offers a model example. Such concentration need not preclude thematic and topical contrasts within the individual movement, of course, yet such contrasts do in fact tend to sound quite muted in these quartets. Brunetti does not seem to share the relish for incongruous juxtaposition that we so often find in Boccherini and Haydn, for example.

One peculiarity of first movements might seem to contradict any sense that Brunetti likes to ‘keep it tight’. Frequently within the second group of an exposition a passage is repeated identically except for the fact that the two violins swap parts. The material is generally more virtuosic than melodic, involving the familiar use of brilliant figuration to stabilize a harmonic area. And the repetitions can end up being extensive – in l194/i the passage that violin 2 repeats is twenty-four bars long, so that the material ends up constituting half of the exposition's ninety-six bars. There might seem to be an obvious social aspect to such a procedure within a chamber-music genre: both violins have their turn to shine (and in l188/i it is the cello that gets to repeat what violin 1 has already executed). But in the opening movements of l191 and l195 the first violin in fact repeats its own material, suggesting that ‘polite’ alternation may not be the driving force behind the practice. And such large-scale alternations often appear transposed in the final section of the movement.

How can we square such extensive repetition at this level with the variety of formal handling of recapitulations, which often seems designed to avoid large-scale reiteration of material? One possible answer involves a recognition that levels of harmonic tension are relatively low in these works, and this also helps to explain the composer's relative indifference to use of a double return – since any sense of a sharp polarity between tonic and other keys (especially V) is quite weak. Indeed, if there is a signature technique in these quartets, it involves the use of pedal points with alternating harmonies heard above. Typically these oscillate between ⁵₃ and ⁶₄ over I or V, often many times over. Significantly, Brunetti seems to be relatively uninterested in the prolongation and elaboration of pre-dominant harmonies: there doesn't seem to be a single use of the Indugio schema, for instance, in these quartets. (The Indugio typically circles around a supertonic harmony three times, building up tension before breaking through to a dominant harmony, which is normally brilliantly expressed; see Robert E. Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 273–283.) This means that dominant harmonies tend to be reached without notable effort or drama. Instead it is another schema, the Quiescenza, that is overwhelmingly prominent and in fact underpins many of these pedal points. Its more common form involves the succession of scale degrees –♭––♮– over a local tonic pedal, though it can also trace a simpler ––– succession in an inner voice. The constant use of this schema suggests a relish for ‘sitting down’ in a chord or tonal area, for being anchored in the bass while the higher voices typically describe pendulum movements. This lends a hovering, centripetal character to much of this music, one that is strongly pastoral in its ethos.

In fact, the longer form of the Quiescenza – which tips towards the subdominant by flattening the leading note before correcting that and leading back to the tonic note with renewed strength – is often exploited by Brunetti to give a sense of ambiguous hovering between key areas. Tonic and subdominant can seem to blend together. In the Largo amoroso of l185, following a cadence in the dominant key (B flat major) at bar 24, the Quiescenza marker of ♭, which should ultimately serve as a means of reinforcing the arrival in the new key, instead tips the music back towards the tonic (E flat major). By the end of the phrase in bar 29, we have in fact reached a cadence back in that tonic – albeit weak, because the preceding dominant chord is in first inversion. That ‘cadence’ is immediately followed by a unison figure that falls by step down a fifth from F to B♭, pulling us back towards B flat major as it suggests a – succession in that key. However, the harmonic sense is being determined purely through melodic succession, since there is no chordal support. The last two bars are then repeated, so that once more a swerve towards E flat is followed by an apparently corrective unison figure. But this time the unison figure is followed by a fully harmonized V–I progression in B flat, subito forte, with the crucial A♮ being heard in the top voice as part of a strong – progression in the dominant key (bars 31–32). So it is B flat major after all, the players seem to declaim. But this harmonic-schematic witticism is quite disorientating for the listener, especially since the entire passage has managed to be ambiguous without using an A♮ anywhere until this point. Following the decisive V–I close, the first violin alone plays a rising flourish that finishes on an A♭. This allows for a ready transition back to the theme in the tonic in this rondo-form movement, but also forces the listener into another aural double-take.

In the Andantino grazioso of l187 this ambiguity extends to the structure of the whole. The movement is in E major, and apparently traces an unusual kind of ternary form, with two consecutive middle sections, the first in the subdominant A major, the second in A minor, marked ‘Minore’ and barred off from the rest. ‘Maggiore’ is then marked at bar 85, a signal, one would think, for the opening material to return, but in fact we hear a reprise of the first four bars (37–40) of the central A major section. This is then followed by the final four bars (33–36) of the first section, in E major, creating an eight-bar modulating period. This exemplifies Brunetti's delight in permutation and unexpected return: what he recapitulates is not readily recognizable opening material but rather a structural join between two sections, and he does it in reverse order. Nevertheless, harmonic continuity does not suffer, since the last bar of the A major phrase has dominant harmony and the first bar of the E major phrase contains an E major ⁶₃ chord, but one we must quickly reinterpret as I⁶₃ rather than V⁶₃. This phrase is linked to a return of opening material, but it is bars 3–4 that return, with bars 1–2 being omitted! A brief four-bar coda features a flattened leading note, but there is no explicit Quiescenza schema that resolves the ♭ to ; instead it is simply replaced by the raised proper to the tonic key. As a final gesture the players present a forte tonic chord, needed to establish the tonic, of course, but it appears on the weak second beat of the bar. This syncopation seems to own up to the disruption and confusion of the tonal sense. In terms of proportions there is barely enough E major for us to be convinced that the tonic has been firmly re-established; the ambiguity between tonic and subdominant lingers. And this is conjoined with a highly allusive use of previous material that plays with the listener's memory of earlier events, together with an unusual overall structure – effectively ABCA.

This relish for ambiguity both tonal and thematic, while clearly thematizing the process of listening in a manner familiar from the works of Haydn and many other figures of the time, also seems to involve a sheer love of soft edges. This can involve a play with function, as when the Andantino grazioso from l187 seems to muddle up beginnings, middles and ends; comparable examples are found in l185/ii, l186/ii and l188/i, all of which sound like they open in mid-phrase. But it can also result in the lower levels of harmonic tension remarked upon above, meaning that key areas blur together rather than being crisply delineated. The most extraordinary embodiment of this is found in those occasional movements in which the exposition section finishes with a cadence in the tonic key – something that one would have thought nigh on impossible within the terms of eighteenth-century tonal practice. Instances can be found in l186/i, 188/iii, 190/i and 191/iii, and generally take place courtesy of Brunetti's beloved Quiescenza. Flattening the leading note of the newly confirmed dominant as a means of retransition back to the repeat of the exposition is perfectly common, as indeed is moving briefly back into the tonic at the outset of a development section, but nowhere else have I seen these options translated into a cadential event that closes the exposition. The effect is certainly bizarre to modern ears, more a kind of plagal coloration than sounding like a convincing return to the tonic. Perhaps this is simply the most radical way in which the composer likes to blend tonic and subdominant functions.

As hinted at earlier, such attributes are consistent with the affective world inhabited by these quartets. The particular realization of the many static harmonic points – pedal note in the bass together with two or three instruments playing above in parallel thirds or sixths – represents the classic textural recipe for the pastoral, and indeed the pastoral is a governing mode in these works. This means a world suffused more by benevolence than by the sharp sociability of a Haydn, one that is predominantly sweet and gentle. This also means, of course, an accessible style, but generally at the refined end. The topical register is rarely low or high – these string quartets contain few traces of anything learned or archaic, but neither do they offer anything that smells too much of the streets. (An exception is bars 28–31 of l197/ii. Indubitably Phrygian in colour, this exotic passage recalls nothing so much as Domenico Scarlatti's use of such harmony – an insistent colouring of what is ostensibly a dominant pedal point, but also sounding like a modal tonic of its own.) While finales often feature strong popular accents, they are rarely rude. They often start and end pianissimo, suggesting revelry heard from afar; almost all are written in the ‘light’ metre of 2/4. Slow movements tend to adopt the idiom of the serenade (a close cousin to the pastoral, especially texturally), though their conduct is often in fact quite ‘elevated’, with texture and slowly pulsating harmony driving expression more than melodic eloquence. This is especially the case in the slow movements of works such as l193, l194 and l197. Consistent with the composer's wider economy of means, they circulate melodic fragments freely amongst the texture, creating an effect of communal meditation; they are among the most striking movements on offer in this collection of quartets. The minuets, where present, are often highly quirky, with asymmetrical phrase syntax that is rarely found in the other movements. This might all suggest that movement typologies have become quite set in these later quartets, certainly compared to the earlier ones, and another proof of this is that triple time is very rarely used. In all the movements contained in this edition, aside from the minuets, just two are set in three: the slow movements of l187 (in 3/8) and l193 (in 3/4).

Another noteworthy absentee is the minor mode. The editors comment on this in their Introduction: Brunetti wrote just five of his fifty quartets in minor keys, and four of these come from the initial ‘fury’ of quartet writing in the 1770s; further, this is not even balanced by the choice of keys for internal movements (xxvi). In the case of the current collection, not only is no single movement set in the minor, but even within these individual movements the minor mode rarely lasts for long, often providing just a passing inflection of the major-mode superset. This can be understood as expressing not just the ‘innocence’ of manner so important to a pastoral idiom, but also its preference for open and consonant sonority. Brunetti's frequent use of material based on horn calls (as in l184/i, l197/iv and l199/ii) forms part of this preference.

The editorial Introduction (in Spanish and English) provides a very full and informative account of the sources as well as considering the ‘opus number problem’ (xxxi) referred to earlier in this review. The English version needed a little more proofreading: Table 2, for example, which lists the quartets in chronological order, features a number of terms that have not been translated from the Spanish. One recurring detail found in the sources, and reproduced in this edition, could have done with a little more explanation. This is the ‘horizontal wavy line’ found in conjunction with groups of repeated notes and here taken to indicate portato execution (xxxiii). As Mark Knoll explains it in the Preface to his edition of Boccherini's wonderful Op. 32 quartets (Ann Arbor: Steglein, 2003; xi), the implications of the sign are not so straightforward. Maybe Brunetti's usage is simply less problematic than that found in Boccherini, where sometimes the wavy line occurs under a single note and cannot therefore indicate portato.

A few minor editorial matters concern the provision of accidentals, which are rather sparingly indicated for cautionary purposes, as at bar 89 of l190/i, where the viola's C is given the necessary natural sign but not that of the first violin. And on a number of occasions involving turn figures, one or other of the neighbour notes would often sound better sharpened to clarify the diminutional structure by moving to within a semitone of the main note, even if the sources do not specify the accidental. In the viola's turn figure first heard in bar 3 of l197/ii, for example, a lower neighbour note of F♯ beneath the G would sound better than the current F[♮], even though the latter note does not sound wrong. This is a point that is often misunderstood by musicians. That aside, and sparing a few dubious readings (the most serious of which comes around bar 52 of l191/ii, but in response to a problematic source situation), one can only welcome this grand unveiling of even part of the output of a once ‘hidden’ but seriously interesting composer.