Category: Sheet music

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

Pan (650), 2014.
51pp, €25.00.

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]eorg Schimmelpfennig seems to have a curious name, but nevertheless had some success, becoming a member of the Kasseler Hofkapelle. He was in particular the teacher of the La Serenissima Principessa Elisabeth Landgravine of Hesse. Unlike the usual habit of sending musicians to Venice (as illustrated by the series of madrigals, including Schütz, sponsored by Gabrieli), this collection of madrigals (not Magridal as on the end of the modern title page!) belongs more to the monodic settings and texts were more of Caccini and the Florentine style. There are 11 un-numbered songs for voice and bass. Sing there are two versions published, it’s easier to locate songs by number than page. I find it odd that the editor has modernised the verse by removing initial capitals – modern Italians seems obsessed with this, but it is surely helpful to keep the capitals to clarify the lines: either they help to check the common break at the beginning of a new line, or they realise that the continuation from the previous line needs some musical point. Rhythmic layout tends towards four minims per bar, though there are sometimes six minims and some irregularities. I don’t see any reason for changing them.

Accidentals are more of a problem. The editor is a bit too strong in asserting that “an additional accidental applies only to the note that it precedes and to any immediate repetition of it”. Surely the convention should apply editorially to the realisation as well. So in the first piece, bar 7, the composer notated the F sharps with a G in between, whereas the realisation has a sharp in the first chord but not at the second, which coincides with the second sharp for the singer. The same practice occurs in bars 14 and 20. I don’t think that there should be two principles. It would be much more useful to performers to print the original (ie voice and Bc) and the keyboard can play the score as in the current edition if he needs it. I’ve tried to look at the music without the right hand, and I didn’t realise for some time that there was an alternative version without realisation, which makes it easier to place a piece on a pair of pages without turns.

Fuggimi quanto poi (no. 9) can be compared with the page of facsimile, which without a realisation gets more than two pages onto one! Bar 11 has a single minim. This isn’t a musical idea but an end of the line: add it to bar 12 and you get the normal four minims! In the realisation at bars 15-17, the right hand is given E flats which only seem plausible for the first note of the three bars and the rest do not need them until the beginning of bar 19, but I’m not sure that the E flats are relevant in the group of 8 semiquavers. Bars 27-28 need something unusual for et alla morte: perhaps keep the first bar plain with the top note the D above middle C, then leave the C bare in the next bar.

I’m not going to comment on every bar, but the singer and players need to be alert and it is much less complex if the accompanist doesn’t have to sort out the page-turning. It is certainly a good collection: a pity Schimmelpfenning abandoned music for what we might now call his later life as being a senior civil servant.

Clifford Bartlett