The prestige he attained during the early stages of his career is undoubtedly attributable to other works that have yet to be identified (probably arias and sacred works), written during his youth. During the reign of Ferdinand I, King of Naples and Sicily, and Maria Caroline of Austria, he was commissioned for no less than six ballets between 1778 and 1781. All six were premiered at the Teatro San Carlo and created in collaboration with the most renowned choreographer of Europe at the time, Charles Lepicq (1744-1806). There were four ballets serios, La Griselda (1779, inspired by the eponymous work by Apostolo Zeno), I ratti sabini (1780), La bella Arsene (1781), and Tamas Kouli-Kan (1781, an interpretation of Cigna-Santi’s Tamas Kouli-Kan nell’Indie), and two mezzocarattere ballets, La sposa persiana (1778) and Il barbiere di Siviglia (1781), following in the wake of Beaumarchais. These works were central to the evolution of Martín y Soler’s career as a composer in Italy, considering that ballet played an important role in the social life of the Neapolitan court. It was the preferred art form of Queen Maria Caroline, who according to Harold Acton in his study The Bourbons of Naples: “had been brought up in a Masonic environment: her father, her brother Joseph II and two of her sisters were Freemasons. Consequently she took an interest in the fraternity, which began to flourish in Naples under her protection. The various lodges provided modern entertainment, gay suppers, balls and literary discussions of the lighter sort… and after Maria Cristina’s arrival [in Naples] the lodges multiplied and spread through the provinces. The pillars of Neapolitan society were known to belong to them… [a fact Casanova corroborates in his Memoirs] the Queen enjoyed the novelty of their banquets. During an opera at the San Carlo the prima donna Bernasconi stopped on the middle of the stage and made the Masonic sign of recognition. She was greeted with general applause… As soon as their Majesties, were come into the pit, the Queen immediately danced a minuet, and to the highest perfection”
Although we can merely speculate, this atmosphere of pronounced liberalism (especially in relation to Spain), must have had an impact on him, in particular considering his subsequent period in Vienna as Joseph II’s favourite composer. Certainly, in many of Martín y Soler’s scores there is evidence of his conscious use of some of the most characteristic musical elements of the Masonic world. These include certain rhythmic cells in perfect time, a coherent use of the most common tonalities such as Eb major, C major and C minor, or such a genuinely Masonic form as the canon –of which Martín was a reputed master. Notwithstanding, in many cases the conjectural character of these observations means they are nothing more than an aid to the comprehension and interpretation of many of his works.
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Martín y Soler’s ballets were a combination of mime and dance, integrating the tragedy and narrative gesture of the classical world into a new form of theatrical dance. His ballets d’action, also known as pantomime-ballets or ballets serios, were precursors of what is known as contemporary dance today.
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However, the analysis of Martín y Soler’s ballets must inevitably be associated with the evolution of the extraordinary dancer and choreographer Charles Lepicq. The fact that they composed the majority together (at least 14 of the 23 accounted for to the present day) highlights Martín’s support of the transformation of ballet into a genre in its own right, independent of opera. It also reflects his acceptance of new concepts of movement and postulated gesture, created by the choreographers Noverre and Angiolini. Martín integrated them in a wonderful fashion into his scores for Lepicq, Noverre’s most fervent pupil: “A charming face, the finest waist, the easiest and most graceful movements, the purest, liveliest and most natural style… Le Picq, the ‘Apollo of dance’, is the most talented dancer in Europe, surpassing any other dancer in narration, pathos of gesticulation, sensitivity and fluidity of movement”. This is the manner in which Baron von Grimm described one of the best exponents of the experimental ballet of the time in his Correspondence litteraire of 1771. Martín y Soler’s ballets were a combination of mime and dance, integrating the tragedy and narrative gesture of the classical world into a new form of theatrical dance. His ballets d’action, also known as pantomime-ballets or ballets serios, were precursors of what is known as contemporary dance today. Both Martín y Soler and Lepicq were in the vanguard of the genre during the last quarter of the eighteenth-century, just as the Gluck-Angiolini partnership had been prior to them.
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