Edited by Friedrich Cerha.
Diletto Musicale (DM 1452) Doblinger, 2014.
36pp + five parts, £21.50.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his volume contains nos. V-X. Nos V & VI are Sopra Rugier and Sopra Romanesca, neither of them strictly ground basses. The other items are merely numbered 7-10. These six items were preceded by a group of 4, due Canti e due Bassi. Frescobaldi took great care as always to produce mostly contrapuntal sections in duple time, but some of the triple sections are chordal. In my earlier days, I enjoyed playing a variety of such pieces on viols in the 1960s, and I probably moved down to continuo playing in the 1970s with violin-family instruments – whichever scoring was played, I enjoyed. My older copies are probably now passed on to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where a lot of my music now resides, though currently they are temporarily in storage. The Bc part is clearly for a chordal realisation, so the score is all that is needed – this isn’t music to be conducted, but there would be some benefit if the continuo part had additional figuring.
| Original clefs | Clefs of the Edition | |
| V: | G2 C2 C3 F4 (Bc F3/C3) | Tr Tr A B (Bc is inF4 in all pieces) |
| VI: | C1 C3 C4 F4 (Bc F4) | Tr Tr A B |
| VII: | C1 C3 C4 F4 (Bc F4/C4) | Tr A A B |
| VIII: | C1 C3 C4 F4 (Bc F4/C4) | Tr Tr A B |
| IX: | C1 C3 C3 F4 (Bc F4) | Tr Tr A B |
| X: | C1 C3 C4 F4 (Bc F4) | Tr Tr A B |
No. VII is the only piece demanding two violas. However, the only problem occurs in bars 56-57 and can easily be fixed:
- Part 2: change E minim to crotchet, then return to A at the end of bar 57
- Part 3: change from note 2 to two crotchet rests then take the last note from part 2; bar 56 notes 1-2 similarly, then swap the minim.
Groups using viols will manage without any difficulty.
Clifford Barlett