Lecture-Recital: Jonathan Goya

About The Program

Howling Monster, Noble Art: Italian Sonatas in Early Eighteenth-Century London

Jonathan Goya, violin, recorder, and oboe
Peter Bennett, harpsichord

Italian musicians flocked to London in the first decades of the eighteenth century to fulfill the English demand for their music. There they encountered two distinct scenes: the Italian opera, a spectacle of virtuosic singing and moral scandal; and amateur societies that revered the instrumental music of Arcangelo Corelli. This lecture-recital explores the careers and music of Francesco Geminiani, Francesco Barsanti, and Giuseppe Sammartini, three immigrants who carved out distinct niches beyond the opera house. To do so, they each developed new strategies of branding, entrepreneurship, and institutional affiliation. Their sonatas for violin, recorder, and oboe, heard alongside their biographies and cultural context, show these strategies at work.

Program Highlights

Francesco Geminiani (1685–1763)
Violin Sonata, Op. 1, No. 7 in C minor (1716/1739)

Francesco Barsanti (1690–1775)
Recorder Sonata, Op. 1, No. 5 in F major (1724)

Giuseppe Sammartini (1695–1750)
Oboe Sonata in B-flat major, GSM 1303 (c. 1720)

About The Artist

Jonathan's research integrates the histories of music pedagogy, theory, publishing, and economics to illuminate the ways that material concerns have both inspired and constrained artistic choices. They recently presented a lecture-recital on the role of violin duos in the career of Louis Spohr as well as a recital of French Baroque music for the Boston Early Music Festival Online Fringe Concerts. Before moving to Cleveland in the middle of a pandemic, Jonathan spent several years teaching at Bard High School Early College in Manhattan and performing throughout the Northeast. Jonathan directed the BHSEC Chamber Ensemble, which performed a vast array of music including works by Lully, Bach, and Haydn with period bows; excerpts from Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with student choreographies developed in a workshop with Meredith Monk; and premieres of student compositions on nearly every concert. Jonathan has served as concertmaster for period orchestras in performances including Handel's Samson and Messiah, Vivaldi's Teuzzone, and led the string band in many of Continuo Collective New York's 17th-century opera projects. Jonathan is a PhD student in Musicology at Case Western Reserve University and also serves as General Manager for Trobár.