Marco Uccellini

This Italian composer held two major positions during his life. They included choir master for the Este court at the cathedral in Modena after his settlement there (he was the instrumental director initially) and a similar position with the Farnese court in Parma. Uccelini composed operas, ballets and instrumental works but none of the ballets and operas survive. Genres within the instrumental works include sinfonias, sonatas, and dances and are contained in seven different collections. The most importatn works were the violin sonatas characterized by predominant ternary forms, and an ordered constant use of motifs for extending the works. Unification also characterizes the sonatas as Uccelini attempted to open sections with variations on initial phrases contained in previous sections or variations on a complete section. Distant relations, chromatics, extension of the violin's range, distant keys and other experiments were also qualities of Uccelini's music. ~ Keith Johnson