A preliminary step is to consider if, instead of playing along with the string orchestra, the regular role of the trumpets was not limited to introduce the events by performing a separate composition or an improvisatory fanfare. Spitzer and Zaslaw report that in one occasion we have a description of an event in which the trumpets were placed far from the orchestra and they played before the orchestra instead of together with it. 32 Similarly, Saverio Franchi reports on a document of 1688 that speaks about a “Coro di Trombe” which might refer to a wind band separate from the orchestra. 33 However, these cases seem to be rather exceptional. Analysing the Archivio Cartari-Febei, and in particular the Ephemerides cartariae, a 31 volumes diary compiled by Carlo Cartari between 1642 and 1691, Arnaldo Morelli has brought to light an extraordinary wealth of documents describing several aspects of the Roman’s musical life. From these documents, it is clear beyond any doubt that the majority of times the trumpet(s) were used in combination with the strings rather than independently from them. 34
On this evidence, some scholars have advanced hypotheses trying to identify, amongst Corelli's survived works, the ones that might have been originally conceived as Sinfonie con trombe.
As one, perhaps even two or three of Corelli's compositions featuring the trumpet have been preserved, 35 it has been suggested that they could be examples of his Sinfonie with trumpets. 36 However, all of these works have quite a different scoring than the genuine Sinfonie , with or without trumpets, that have come to us. Indeed, two of them are written for only one trumpet, two violins and continuo while the third one is scored for two trumpets and one violin only. Although one cannot affirm that an internal Sinfonia of a vocal piece cannot conceive an instrumentation drastically thinner than the rest of the work, it seems odd that at the moment where the trumpets start playing, most of the strings would stop. The magnificent character usually associated to the music with trumpets would rather suggest the use of all the available instrumental forces at those moments. Furthermore, in none of the above-mentioned pieces, there is any trace of solo/tutti, alias concertino/concerto grosso structure, a trait that seems to be a hallmark of the (few) survived genuine Sinfonie . Because of these reasons, I believe that these compositions have to be considered as part of the chamber music repertoire rather than like the orchestral works performed by the large ensembles taking part in the festive events of the Roman society. The same opinion is held by Wolf Dietrich Förster who, for instance, recognised in WoO 4 n. 1 a typical example of 'sonata a tre’. 37
Another kind of speculation starts from the commonly held view that Corelli's Opus 6 represents, at least in part, a publication of revised versions of previously composed pieces.
The fact that Corelli's Concertos Opus 6 are, at least to some extent, the result of a reworking of previously composed works, is accepted as a fact amongst scholars. Already Mario Rinaldi and many others after him, have expressed the same opinion. 38 Franco Piperno, in particular, has pointed to a number of evidences speaking in favour of such a genesis. For instance, the evident derivation of the third movement of Concerto n. 6 from the second movement of the Sinfonia of the Beatrice d'Este, or the existence of a single page autograph containing a movement which was later included, in a different tonality, in Concerto n. 10. 39 There is also a primary source suggesting that Corelli’s Sinfonie clustered eventually in his Opus 6: it is the statement by Giovanni Crescimbeni that “the beauty of Corelli's countless Sinfonie can be observed in his printed work”, by which we are to understand that it is his Opus 6 (Crescimbeni 1720, 251). 40 As a consequence of all the above, one could then argue that, in Opus 6, it would be possible to track some traces of the lost Sinfonie . With this in mind, an article about Corelli and Torelli by Förster is intriguing. 41 Förster's analysis shows a striking resemblance between the trumpets' parts of a Torelli Sinfonia and the violin concertino's parts of the Allegro starting at bar 61 of Concerto Opus 6 n. 2.
Although Förster does not draw any consequence from this similarity, in the perspective of identifying some parts of Opus 6 that might have featured the use of trumpets, it would be indeed tempting to suggest that this piece was originally conceived, in a different tonality, 42 for trumpets and strings. 43 Hence, one could aim at reworking the score of it and at attributing, at least partly, the music played by the concertino violins to the trumpets. While the approach of considering the genesis of Opus 6 as a starting point for the speculation on the nature, form and sound of Corelli's Sinfonie seems very appealing to me – the idea that the portions of music of Opus 6 adopting a trumpet-like idiom were originally attributed to the trumpets, has to be given the benefit of the doubt: on the one hand, it should not be forgotten how the violin literature, since long before Corelli, is rich in examples of non-idiomatic writing in which the violins imitate other instruments; on the other hand, from the few survived examples that have come to us, the use of the trumpets in the Roman Sinfonie , does not seem to make extensive use of the “new” virtuosic trumpet style found in Torelli’s trumpet compositions. As a consequence, I believe that a rearrangement of this, or of similar movements, with the trumpets substituting for the violins, would surely be interesting, but might not be a convincing solution for answering the question: “How did Corelli's Sinfonie with trumpets sound?”.
A few practical experiments have been carried out by some musicians, the most noticeable being the recording of the complete Opus 6 by Federico Maria Sardelli and his group Modo Antiquo. 44 In his recording, Sardelli makes use of a variety of wind instruments including 2 trumpets (oboes, recorders, bassoon are also used). The trumpets are treated as part of the Concerto Grosso group (exactly like oboes and recorders when they are added) and, as such, they tend to play a “simplified” version of the violin ripieno part. There are two main problems with this solution: on the one hand the natural trumpet is challenged with an idiom highly virtuosic and, at times, slightly anachronistic; on the other hand, several bars in which the music has a grandiose character do not benefit from the trumpet’s sound because the concerto grosso violin part is totally out of the trumpet’s reach and, consequently, the trumpets are kept silent. 45 For the same reason, the trumpets are sometimes forced to suddenly rest in bars where it would seem most logical to have them playing. 46 Overall, the trumpets’ addition in Sardelli’s version seems sometimes inconsistent, and their use excessively constrained by having to adapt to the violin concerto grosso writing. Moreover, Sardelli makes extensive use of the oboes, often having them playing alongside the trumpets doubling the Concerto Grosso’s parts: 47 as it has been discussed above, the extensive use of other winds instruments, oboes amongst them, seems to find little support in the sources. At the same time their use - in particular if employed to double the violins’ parts - gives a very peculiar colour to the orchestral sound. As a result, although musically fascinating, I believe that Sardelli's version, like other attempts that have been made to enrich Opus 6 with different types of wind instruments, might have not convincingly and closely approached the soundscape of the Sinfonie with trumpets heard in Rome around 1700.