The Largo from the Organ Sonata in D minor is a binary form movement in 12/8. The realisation plays back at 42 dotted quarter note beats to the minute whilst the trills sound on the playing of the repeats. The sheet music comes with both a piano and organ score. This is a very good movement to transition piano players into playing the organ with two manuals and pedals. The music editor suggests playing through the music without ornamentation in the first instance then adding the trills on the repeat. The advice on the use or ornaments is that appropriateness and consistency should be the abiding criteria in a performance. Ornamentation is a complex issue particularly at this time in music history. Apart from the consideration of Italian style there is also the fact that Galuppi is one of those composers who links one musical age and with another in what was a time of much change in performance practice. He composed a great number of works for keyboard instruments and was highly regarded as a performer. He also composed operas and sacred music. Galuppi’s music is not particularly well represented by publishers and one of the reasons for this is because of Napoleon’s invasion of Venice in 1797. As a consequence of this many of the composer’s manuscripts were lost. Baldassare Galuppi (1706 – 1785) was born on the Venetian island of Burano and whilst he worked in Vienna, London and St. Petersburg he was mostly based in Venice where he held a number of important musical positions. He is one of an important group of composers that link the baroque with the classical age and is identified particularly with the style galant movement.
