CONCLUSIONS

             The instruments used as obbligatos in some of the arias in Antonio Caldara's oratorios composed for the Vienna Hofmusikkapelle between 1716 and 1736 seem to have been specific to a particular period within a particular geographical era. Indeed, no chalumeau, salterio or trombone obbligato can be found among many other composers of the same period living in other parts of Europe such as Paris, London or Leipzig.

             The links I have found between the obbligato instruments, affects and texts are of several kinds. The recurrences found between certain instruments and affects are the result of observations made after the texts were classified in three categories (pain, warlike feelings and religious feelings), categories that I have created in order to be as close and specific as possible to the meaning of the texts set to music. The creation of these categories was indeed inspired by the lists of affects often evoked in the 17th and 18th centuries treatises about rhetoric, but they then came out of my interpretation of the texts. The recurrences found thanks to this classification are therefore to be taken as my view of these texts, these arias and the instruments associated with them, and not as the universal affirmation of a scientific and musicological truth that would unite the association of this instrument with this affect in any other context.

             The second link between the obbligato instruments and the texts is purely related to Antonio Caldara's musical writing and the way he intertwined the text-carrying voice and the instrument. I have thus been able to notice four ways in which the obbligato instruments are linked to the text and the affects of the text. These four ways are not standard either, and many variations are possible. They are certainly not specific to Antonio Caldara, and other composers must have composed differently for voice and obbligato instrument before, during and after Caldara's life. These four roles or ways in which Antonio Caldara uses obbligato instruments in his oratorios are: first, the highlighting of the affects of the text by the melodic repetition of the instrument, like an echo of the suffering or joy evoked in the aria; second, transmitting the word of God to men (vision, morality), or from men to God (prayer, praise) – the instrument then becomes the means of transmitting these words; third, illustrating the sung text by imitating certain words, often related to nature (as tumultuous waves), or sound evoked in the text (such as the sound of a trumpet), like a mise en abyme of the piece, translated into sound; fourth and last, creating a harmonic atmosphere linked to the use of the instruments in a sort of chorus. These four ways are therefore the ones I observed when analysing the pieces and I have chosen to present the examples I liked best to support my point.

             The last link concerns one obbligato instrument, the salterio, and four characters from four different oratorios. This is the only recurrence I found between a specific instrument and a specific type of character. The men who sing these arias are linked to God in one way or another and have a strong relationship with him. Referring for me to David, who, according to the biblical tradition, accompanied himself on the harp to sing the psalms, the salterio introduces an atmosphere of contemplation, soft, harmonious and airy. As if it were a link between God and mankind. These four roles were attributed to the alto voice, and were sung by the same castrato, Gaetano Orsini, who spent most of his career at the Viennese court and was considered one of the best altos of his time.

             In order to carry out these analyses and to have an overview of the twenty-one oratorios to which I have had access, I have produced a descriptive catalogue of each oratorio in the form of a table available in pdf format on the research catalogue but also on my website. Before I even noticed how useful these tables would be for me to carry out this research work, I had the idea of making them available to anyone who would like to, with the aim of making the contents of these oratorios, unknown to the general public, accessible. It was then that I noticed that some of these arias had already been recorded, and so the rest of the content of these oratorios had been rather well kept until now. Not aiming for the exclusivity of this or that aria that has never been sung before, but rather for the discovery of a magnificent corpus of music that is still too little known, I preferred to allow musicians who so wished to have easy access to this repertoire without having to flip through, virtually or for real, all the manuscripts, page after page. Having these tables in front of my eyes allowed me to see at a glance the tonalities and tempi of the arias, where they were in the oratorio and which character was singing it. I do not think I can repeat enough how much easier it was for me to place the arias I was translating into context, to create the table of the singers who created the oratorios in Caldara's time, but also to get a quick glimpse of a work in its entirety without having to go back to the manuscript.

             The greatest pleasure in all this research was finally to discover a repertoire of which I had no knowledge, and instruments used as obbligato in arias that I had not even thought existed. Here I refer mainly to the chalumeau, trombone and salterio; and my only small disappointment, however quickly forgotten, is that I did not discover any aria for soprano and salterio.