Category: Sheet music

BWV Anh, III 162…
Anthem for double choir (SATB/SATB) formerly attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach, edited by Klaus Winkler.
Carus (35,013), €15,50.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his really has no relationship with Bach at all. Early in the 19th century it was attributed to Bach, and edited by Johann Gottfried Schicht (1753-1823) for Breitkopf & Härtel in 1819. The first edition of the BWV publications seems to have been accepted it as not being by Bach but by Georg Gottfried Wagner (1698-1756). He was a member of the St Thomas choir from 1712, but left in 1726 to become Kantor in Plauen (Saxony), staying there until his death in 1756. Considering his minimum quantity of composition, this is impressive. The earliest source dates from 1755, copied by Christian Friedrich Penzel – he was a student and stayed till he became Kantor at Merseburg in 1765; he also produced a set of parts. The absence of a continuo part possibly suggests use at a burial – if so, it must honour a very positive character!

The edition was translated into English for Novello: the copy used is labelled “Anthem for double chorus by G. G. Wagner (formerly by J. S. Bach) adapted to English words by Alfred Angel. Revised for the use of the ‘Bach Choir’, 1876. London: Novello and Company, Ltd. No. 661 in Novello’s Octavo Choruses.” It is very difficult to trust Novello dates – library catalogues tend to add a relevant year without relating them to the original numbers: the suggestion of 1876 may merely have been adjusted to Angel’s year of death. A Catalogue of the valuable musical library of the late Alfred Angel: And rare autograph letters by Alfred Angel (1876) was likely to have a careful respect for dates. What is of primary interest, however, is the skill by which he underlaid the English text which was printed under the German.

Clifford Bartlett

Brepols, 2014.
217pp, €60.00.
ISBN 1 978 2 503 55328 3

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is primarily significant for the completion of the basso continuo, of which only four pages survive. I’ll concentrate primarily on the edition rather than the discussion of the music. Back in the early 1970s, I had a considerable interest in Marini, copying and performing some of his music, including three items from op. 7 requiring six voices and six instruments, which were included in a concert at St John’s Smith Square in aid of another of the Venice floods. Sadly, I never persevered with publishing them.

The volume reviewed here is frustrating in its layout. Publishing it for performance requires much more thought than the editors or publishers have considered. The simplest solution would be to sing/play from facsimile, and the continuo player could read from the existing score. But as it stands, the underlaid texts are too small. It would be more helpful if two-page pieces began where possible (as in the opening six pieces) on the even-numbered pages and minimising turns subsequently. avoiding a start on the odd-number pages if possible.

As a continuo player, I find the editorial figuring to the continuo part erratic. At the time, figuring is often sketchy. The full closing phrase of a section (for instance, in no. 1, bars 13, 22, 29 & the last chord) has no figure. Most players now would assume a major chord, but it’s safer to add a sharp (and the sharp stands for the major chord: ignore modern pedants who insist on a the later usage! Bar 17 would begin with a 6 were it figured, followed by the #6 as edited: but is the cadence D major, and continuing through the next bar? I get the feeling that just a little more help might be given. I always keep to major and minor as sharp or flat and avoid naturals – there are naturals that I would write as sharps in bars 37 & 38. I have no desire to avoid naturals other than in the figuring, but there is some inconsistency of repetition within a bar.

After writing this, however, I came across Thomas D. Dunn’s edition, and I’ve checked the opening song. He begins with a bottom G rather than one at unison pitch with the tenor, with an A as second minim on bar two figured 7 #6. No figure is given for the G in bar 3, which could be minor. In bar 5, Dunn has an E flat figured 7 6. It’s worth comparing the two editions, and on the whole Dunn is preferable, in particular when the voice is tenor. (The print-out is odd, but OK on screen.) Returning to the first three bars, although the principle of having the accom­paniment generally below the voice, it doesn’t necessarily apply to a tenor, but Dunn’s lower octave enables the opening phrase to have some shaping harmony.

The work contains 13 vocal pieces, ranging from one to five singers, followed by 12 instrumental ones. The layout on p. 87, presumably following the original, would have been much more useful had it been placed on the Sommario page, with the list of musical items in the two-column version. However, an additional requirement is the numbering of each piece: the page-number agrees with the 1-12, but then the remaining items should continue the sequence. However, the p. 87 version should stay as is, but with a note saying which part has those page numbers. It would have been more convenient if each piece were numbered. [This is meaningless if you don’t have the score!]

The items are varied, beginning with four solo voices, the first pair for tenor, the second pair for treble. 5 & 6 are tenor duets, 7 is SB, 8 is ST, 9 is STB, 10 is SSB, 11 is SST, 12 is SSATB and 13 is SSATB + 2 vlns. There follow 12 instrumental pieces, for which I’ll only name specific instruments on specific scoring: 13 for vln, cnt, trmbn + Bc. There are unnamed staves for violins or cornetti and the bottom line can be string bass, trombone or fagotto. I don’t know the timings, but a CD of the volume should mix vocal and instrumental items.

The substantial Marenzio book by the same publisher reviewed in this issue is in English: not all singers can manage exact understanding but there is room in the printing of the text to add an English version in the virtually empty right column. I feel that the writers are more concerned with a musicological study accompanied by lengthy footnotes but the music itself squashed to economise the music by having small print of the notes and even smaller size of the underlay. Instead, the page-size should be bigger, and the musicological text could be in double columns and smaller. It would then be circulated more widely. But I’m not sure that the editors’ Basso continuo is better than the exemple of Dunn. Performers may decide to make their own basses!

Clifford Bartlett

Edited by Armin Kircher.
Carus (27.318), €52.50, 72pp.
Vocal score (27.318/03), €18.50, 56pp.
Parts €5.80 each.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]’ve played organ for the F-minor Requiem nearly as many times as Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers, though mostly (in both cases) for workshops or small-scale concerts. I reckon this and the 23-part Mass are significant works, whereas the 53-part Mass (my parts have 57) is a bit boring, since the rich texture doesn’t produce enough beyond that. The other Requiem in A has nowhere near the power of the F minor one. The edition I have been using was by Michael Pilkington. I can’t remember the details, but it was his copyright in 1992 (though I had the material) and it became ours in 2001. The source was DTO 50 (1918) by Guido Adler. There were arguments that missing parts were available. Our edition, based on DTO 50, is written as 3 trombones, 2 vlns, 3 violas & violone, SSATB (Rip & Solo on the same staves), bassoon & figured continuo. Carus cues the trombones with the A, T & B voices in ripieni. The continuo includes, as required, organ, violone, fagotto & violoncello, while the Kings Music edition has the Violone within the group of strings, which is sensible, as well as the bassoon part on the part above the Bc. (The fagotto doesn’t have any specific function other than as playing the bass, whereas the violone seems much better as part of the string group in our edition.) There used to be discussions about the number of parts – not that there were any missing. But they are now known to have the five vocal parts for soloists repeated by two further sets for additional singers. At probably a later stage, a second fagotto part appeared, and there were three organ parts (not surprising for Salzburg Cathedral). I’ve been rather too busy to compare our score with the new one – I’ll make a comparison if anyone offers to buy it! The difference in layout is that our score is mostly on only one system per page whereas Carus, with a larger format, generally has two staves per page. The Carus vocal score is a normal vocal-score and is slightly easier to read than ours and is a bit more expensive.

One anomaly is that the foot of the first music page follows the German note with “Concerning the basso continuo part see the Critical Report”, but the Kritischer Bericht is only in German. One might expect scholars to understand it, but offering an apparently English commentary when one does not exist is odd. I find that the detailed comments are manageable, but the prose is more complicated, and if the edition has a Vorwort and a Foreword, it’s sensible to include an English Critical Report. It is sensible to see occasionally the orchestral parts, so I requested the violin I and cello. It is way above ours – but it doesn’t actually have to be quite so large when the work was played with one player per part. The cover shows the four galleries, but not for a performance of the Requiem. The title page lists the forces as 5 solo voice and strings, five ripieno voices, 3 trombones ad lib – the continuo was evidently obvious.

It is a marvellous work, whether performed by any decent edition (I don’t know if there are more). A tour de force for performers is Judex ergo in 3/2, with the six crotchets accented on the 2nd and 5th note of the bar, and the music continues except for a cadence at bar 76 (to close one group while another starts the offbeat simultaneously) and at bars 84-85 there is a new phrase “Rex tremendae” stressed by the last syllable filling a whole bar, then starts again with 8 bars of the off-beat rhythm, with the final chord at the beginning of the last bar. The three chords that break the pattern need to keep the penultimate strong, with the concluding note equally significant. Somehow, the performers need to be aware of this: the bar-line shape is still vestigially recognised by performers and listeners! (NB The movement does not start at 1 but at 68.) This is only one of the triple-time sections; Te decet hymnus has the more usual 3/2 with frequent hemiolas. I won’t go on – there are brief remarks on the music in the Foreword. I’d love to hear the piece rehearsed while I was still alive, then had it performed for my funeral or commemoration.

Clifford Bartlett

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] received three recent issues in mid-April. The most substantial is No. 239, which is quite expensive (£40.10), especially for those who already have the score in Musica Britannica, vol. 70. There are two sets – 28 for three strings and organ, followed by another 21 with no organ. There are no problems with the latter, which is not included here. But the work at issue requires an organ, even if it is rarely independent. If you want to play without organ, not too much is missing, and that can be done from the string parts available from Stainer and Bell: professional players aren’t going to play without the organ: better to use a harpsichord or theorbo than nothing! In addition to MB 70, we now have two complete sets of parts of the 28 Fantasias (including the Pavan, no. 18), both without the organ. For economical reasons, an organist is not likely to buy just the first of the two sets, since the second set doesn’t have one. Meanwhile, Stephen Peglar has produced quite an expensive edition that is distorted to squeeze in essential organ passages.

No. 240 (£7.20) comprises the last pair of six Divisions for treble and bass on a ground, with the composer headed as Anon. (John Jenkins?) No. 5 in in g, No. 6 in G. There’s no shortage of semiquavers and some demisemiquavers, while a budding organist should be able to place the chords in the right place. Andrew Ashbee is the editor, informed by Peter Holman.

No. 241 (£17.00) is a set of 10 Fantasies in 3 Parts for TrTrT & TrTrB by John Okeover. The top part is treble, the second part varies between G2 and C1, and the lowest part of the first four are for tenor, with the fifth having a compass from two octaves below middle C up to the 440 A; the other five have more normal bass ranges. Andrew Ashbee is again the editor.

Clifford Bartlett

transcribed and edited by Jonathan P. Wainwright.
(Music Britannica, 98).
Stainer & Bell, 2015.
xxxviii + 135pp, £88.00.

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]ering first appears in modern editions in Consort Songs (MB 22, 1667) with City Cries and Country Cries. His Secular Vocal Music (MB 25, 1969), edited by Peter Platt, contains 20 Canzonette a3 and 24 a4, two volumes published by Phalèse in 1620. The Italian MS pieces from UK MS sources are mostly in three parts. It ends with a trio and a sextet in English. My impression is that these are under-sung. Wainwright’s first volume of Dering (MB 87, 2008) contains chiefly music that survived long after Dering’s death: Playford’s Cantica Sacra 1662 and The Second Sett 1674. The 1662 set has 14 sacred songs for two voices and and ten for three (all with continuo); the 1674 set has 8 duets for treble or tenor, bass & Bc. There are a dozen more from MS sources and 12 incomplete works. Ardens est cor meum appears differently as the first and the last item in the volume. There is just one volume from Early English Church Music (15, 1974), Cantica Sacra a6, 1618. Platt was editor, but overdid the transposition with keys of G, D and A – the notational practice of sharp signatures didn’t exist in Dering’s period.

The main contents of MB 98 are Cantiones Sacrae quinque vocum cum basso continuo ad organum. That contains 18 Latin pieces, many with familiar texts, and is followed by two English translations, Lord thou art worthy (19) and Therefore with Angels (20), both based on the O nomen Jesu, the second part of no. 1. The volume ends with three anthems: Almighty God which through thy only-begotten Son (21), And the King was moved (22) and Unto thee O Lord (23, perhaps by Wilkinson).

Jonathan Wainwright’s editorial remarks and practice are sensible. I’ve known him since he called on me to discuss what his doctorate should be, and I’ve been impressed by him for something like 30 years. The addition of slashed slurs to indicate where a note has two or more letters is hardly necessary since the words are clearly spaced. I’m not entirely convinced that repeated accidentals in a bar can be omitted: I prefer the system of repeating accidentals unless consecutive – it’s clearer. It also seems unnecessary to leave the original mensuration sign – 4/2 looks odd!

The pitches present a problem – and it is easier to solve performance if the compass of each part is shown. The current assumption of standard pitch is about three quarters of a tone higher, though it can be sung either a semitone or a tone above. High-pitch clefs (nos 5 & 10-15) in theory should be a fifth or thereabouts lower. But care needs to be taken when a continuo organ is necessary: omitting it is regrettable, partly for the backing, but also for the occasional isolated organ chords.

The music itself is impressive, though features are perhaps a little similar. I think on the whole that I’d prefer to hear anthologies of Dering rather than complete Dering record­ings. MB scores are rather large to read and expensive to buy: the A4 compromise would need minimal change of the adjustment apart from narrower edges – or does Stainer and Bell reprint individual pieces thus?

Clifford Bartlett

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“set for the Harpsichord or Organ by Francesco Geminiani (1743) & Anonymous (ca. 1749)…”
Arranged and edited by Siegbert Rampe.
Bärenreiter (BA 9254), 2015, £29.00.
xiv + 50pp + 3 parts.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]was puzzled when I saw adverts of this, but it turns out to be interesting. For a start, there is considerable information on the two works in the introduction. The Water Music for keyboard was issued in 1725, 1733/34 and 1743, the last version being arranged by Geminiani. (The comment in the introduction in the second column of the second paragraph of page x is confusing, since three dates are described as “the latter”! The German text is correct.) As the introduction says, Geminiani was not primarily a keyboard composer, but it works quite well. Some cadences look bare, but perhaps that is left to the player to fill in. The Fireworks keyboard version is not very sophisticated, so the editor has produced a solo keyboard version as well as another for treble and continuo; three parts are provided – flute/violin/oboe & Bc, and realised continuo with right-hand fill-in in the middle stave. Odd bits of facsimile fill in gaps, but could be more precisely related to the main score. Fun to play, but with so many CDs, playing on keyboard is rather old fashioned – but perhaps the custom will change.

Clifford Bartlett

Catena Sammlung (Mus. ms. Landsberg 122-Berlin).
Inta­vo­latura mit Werken von Frescobaldi, Tarditi u. a. für Orgel (oder Cembalo).
(Frutti Musicali 19) Band I (EW 919), 2013.
[vi] + 50pp. €21.80

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This is edited by Jolando Scarpa. There are 30 pieces in Vol. I. Only two each are ascribed to Frescobaldi and Tarditi, the rest are anonymous. It should be interesting getting a class of students to allocate the merits of the pieces by skill as well as by style.

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Schmelzer: Sonata Lanterly fur 2 Violinen, Viola da Gamba und Basso Continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis vii.) (EW 763), 2013.
iv + 14pp + 5 parts. €16.50

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The title probably implies a vagabond’s music. The opening section in C starts with that tune. There’s a change to 3/2 at bar 69 which is simpler – but I’m not sure that the editor can call it even a “a sort of galliard”. The 12/8 Allegro starts at bar 112 definitely as a gigue, ending at bar 141 with C tempo again as coda. Adding editorial figures to the bass is, I would have thought, more useful than printing a blank treble stave – the whole point of learning to play continuo is to show the chords, not the notes. It seems odd not to treat the beaming in a more logical way. For instance, in bar 6 vln II has two groups of eight semiquavers, whereas the same phrase in the gamba part is in groups of four semiquavers. It was sensible to include a viola part in C3 clef.

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Schmelzer: Ciaccona fur Violine und Basso continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis xi) (EW 648), 2014.
7pp + vln & unbound score for Bc. €10.00

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The ground is (:a|Ae|F.|D.|E:||:e|Ef|D.|E.|A:). [Minims are capitals, crotchets are lower-case.] Rather than bar numbers, it is more useful to number the ground for the violinist, eg 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b etc. The bass & Bc only need to know how many times the bass is played. Simple pieces like this don’t really need the occasional missing barline (eg bars 91 & 96) to be indicated by dotted lines nor do I understand why there is a single eight-note semiquaver group in bar 83.

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Georg Muffat: Sonata Violino Solo (Prag 1677) Violine und Basso continuo
(Harmonia Coelestis, x) (EW 874).
vi + 16 + 3 parts. 2014. €14.80

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I first heard this played by John Holloway on Radio 3 and we decided that it needed publication. It’s an amazing piece lasting 198 bars, the first 37 of which are Adagio and the rest Allegros and Adagios which don’t offer gaps for page-turns. My edition (£6.00) is more straight forward and cheaper for those who don’t need a score with realised keyboard.

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Georg Muffat: Vier Partiten fur Cembalo (B-Bsa SA 4581)
(Harmonia Coelestis IX) (EW 769).
xi + 28pp. €17.50

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The four Partitas (C, F, E, e) are from the Berlin Sing-Akademie. Three (C, E and e) are new discoveries, while the set in F amplifies the previously known sections. The MS was copied 30 years or more after the elder Muffat had died. These are interesting to play, but it’s not clear whether straight lines are to warn the reader that two notes are in a single part even if not notated with stems in the same direction, though sometimes they might be of some musical significance. The editor seems to be a bit pedantic, but the selection is worth playing.

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Clérambault: Simphonia Va : Chaconne fur Violine und Basso Continuo.
(Frutti Musicali 21)
v + 6pp + 2 parts. €11.50

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This does not have the repetitive bass of Schmelzer’s Ciaccona, whose bass has no variety apart from what the players can inspire. This sensibly avoids a blank right-hand stave, though reading it through in my head, far too much seemed to follow the violin – perhaps I’m out of touch! Two pages of MS are shown, displaying nothing odd as in the earlier pieces considered here.

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Johann Ulich: Sechs Sonaten fur Blockflöte und Cembalo.
Band I (Collegium Musicum). (EW 921)
34 pp: two scores with facsimiles. €19.80

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I don’t know the composer at all, so it’s worth giving his dates (1677-1742). His father was organist at Wittenberg, which is presumably where he acquired his skill. He was organist at Zerbst from 1708, active in St Bartholomew’s church and as court musician. The VI Sonaten à Flauto con Cembalo was published in 1716 in two separate parts. The treble part is named Flauto, but that almost certainly implies recorder, whose notation is for the G on the bottom line going up two octaves. This has the first three of the six sonatas. There are two copies in score, one of which also has the recorder part in facsimile and the other the bass, both with the original prelims and the three first sonatas. The only complete copy is in the Russian State Library in Moscow, which justifies making the facsimile available. There’s a recording of 2013. Well worth buying.

Clifford Bartlett