On the Authorship of the Keyboard Works Attributed to João de Sousa Carvalho

Abstract

This article deals with manuscript Lisbon, National Library, M.M. 321, a collection datable to the mid 1790s, and source for the modem editions of the three keyboard Sonatas currently attributed to João de Sousa Carvalho. Circumstantial evidence and additional new sources prove that the g minor Sonata is in actual fact a version of Mattia Vento's Sonata v (from his 2nd set) and that the F major Sonata is descended from manuscripts Lisbon, National Library, F.C.R. 228.39 and F.C.R. 92.4, being an arrangement of an anonymous F major keyboard Concerto, with the middle movement replaced by the corresponding movement of a D major keyboard Concerto attributed to Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi. Both Concertos were revised by Sousa Carvalho in the late 1780s. Thus, the D major Sonata is the only one for which the attribution to João de Sousa Carvalho can still be accepted.