Edited by Davide Rebuffa
Ut Orpheus, 2016.
X + 38pp, €16.95
Sauli was a theorbist in the first decade of the 18th century at the Hapsburg court in Vienna. The six MS partitas were written in French tablature, but the edition is on a single treble clef in two voices. The length varies from three to five dances. It is likely that bass lines were available: no. 5 is printed thus as an appendix.
Clifford Bartlett
Musiche della cappella di Santa Barbara in Mantova
Ed. Ottavio Beretta (Vol. IV: Messe di Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina)
LIM, 2016, pp. clviii + 470.
ISBN 9788870968163 €100
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese 12 polyphonic alternatim masses (alternating monodic with polyphonic choruses, the monodic plainchant by solo, organ, or unison chorus or soloists), commissioned by the court of Mantua between 1568 and 1579, are the only ones written for a liturgy different from Rome’s by Palestrina and his only masses composed between 1575 and 1581. They are of remarkable quality and well documented, yet ‘lost’ and unknown until 1950. For centuries the vocal parts were unidentified, hastily catalogued, ignored and forgotten, until 10 were authenticated by Knud Jeppesen and published in 1954. Analyzed by him and others, all 12 finally appear in Volume IV of what will be Ottavio Beretta’s modern 6-volume edition of all the masses from the archive of the Basilica Palatina di S. Barbara in Mantua ordered by Guglielmo Gonzaga (including several by the duke himself) and housed, since 1851, in the library of the Conservatory of Milan. Three volumes were published in 1997, 2000 and 2007 under the auspices of the American Institute of Musicology as part of the Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae 108/I, III and II. The LIM has agreed to complete the series. The present volume contains all of those by Palestrina, and it is hard to imagine a more thoroughly discussed, enlightening, helpful, beautiful, critical edition.
This is not my field, even though I do accompany a choir that sings alternatim masses; unexpectedly I found the 158-page introduction fascinating, even if not easy. Non-Italian readers can access the tables with the masses’ modes, structural dimensions, vocal ranges, and a list of sections reduced to four voices (and to which four), on pages cxxii-iii, and consult the up to date Bibliography on cxxxix-clvii. The complete original Mantuan plainchants in mensural notation (Kyriale ad usum Ecclesie Sancte Barbare) for the 10 Ordinary masses are given with critical annotations xcvii-cxiv. Adding a translation to a volume already weighing 6 or 7 lbs. was not feasible, but a volume with ‘only’ 463 pages of music separate from another of clvii pages could have provided also in English translation the sections about Guglielmo, Palestrina and the compositional style of the masses!
Beretta opted to include the entire correspondence between Palestrina and Guglielmo in a 30-page appendix, after which he discusses what the instructions and intentions of Guglielmo were. Both respected the orders of the Council of Trent and thereby produced a type of mass that the Vatican also desired to have for occasions of the highest solemnity, where a second choir replaced the organ. Palestrina therefore asked Guglielmo for permission (willingly granted) to use the Mantuan plainchant repertory in Rome. In its variants and rewritings it respected the unity of mode in each piece, with the finalis and repercussion at the beginning and end of every verse, filled in wide skips with melismas and removed others, for a homogeneous result.
The story of these special Mantuan Masses is not recounted chronologically. The dates presented to the reader bounce from 1881 back to 1828, to 1851-1854, 1951, then 1933, 1954, and back to 1850, with citations or documents from 1963, 1900, 1947, 1950 in that order. It might have been better to start with Guglielmo Gonzaga’s correspondence with Palestrina! In the minds of musical philologists, however, the obstacle-ridden research history was necessarily uppermost, and to the extent that future researches will join this adventure, this, too, makes sense – and creates the suspense that kept me reading.
Guglielmo (1538-1587), a composer and musical theorist himself, as well as a collector of art and a patron of theatrical and literary arts, second son of Federico II, husband of Eleonora of Austria, was crowned Duke of Mantua and Montferrato in 1573 having governed from 1556. Italy was divided into kingdoms, papal states and dukedoms – the latter powerful enough to resist interference, even in rituals, from Rome. The Basilica Palatina di Santa Barbara was designed in part by Guglielmo, built by 1565 in the ducal palace, enlarged between 1568 and 1572, and planned for sumptuous religious ceremonies with elaborate sacred music. Its Antegnati organ was ordered by G. Cavazzoni; its plainchant and its liturgy were exclusive to Mantua.
Musicians in residence included Wert, Pallavicino, Gastoldi; works by Palestrina, Marenzio and others were commissioned; prints of music by them and others (among whom Gabrieli, di Lasso, da Victoria, Asola, Agazzari) as well as manuscripts were bought for the private use of the court. Guglielmo’s tastes were conservative, and older figures (G. Bruschi, G. Contino, A. Bonavicino) were active before the arrival of G. de Wert. The repertory of S. Barbara was approved by Gregory XIII, and it constituted a monument to the Reformation, perhaps the only complete one manifesting all the required characteristics (declamatory clarity, pure and unified modality, simple melodies not exceeding an octave, proper accentuation of words).
The masses by Palestrina were commissioned, composed for the Basilica, and delivered, and the part books were stored in its archive along with a mass by Guglielmo and many by other composers. Guglielmo died in 1587 after which no further works were ordered. Mantua planned to sell the contents of the archive to the Conservatory of Milan in 1850, but after the Mantuans received 500 lire and sent them, Austrian authorities blocked the purchase and had them returned to Mantua, ordering to have this illegible music inventoried (‘…old note forms… impossibility of understanding the sense…’). In less than two weeks the parts, obviously not even opened, were deemed to be ‘of no interest, neither for age nor for merit’, not even for the history of sacred music, ‘imperfect works [incomplete?]’ and ‘unusable pages’ by ‘various authors’. The conservatory, however, realized the importance of the cache on the basis of this inventory! Instead of estimating its value, they disarmingly wrote that the Austrians ‘did well’ to block the sale, thereby keeping this ‘monument of music’ for themselves, recommending that it be conserved and made usable, and asking to be reimbursed for the previous purchase, which they were. So the Austrians ordered the entire archive to be deposited again in the Conservatory of Milan and to be sent at the expense of Mantua. It arrived in 1851, eventually becoming the Conservatory’s property, after a settlement for 600 lire was paid; it was declared to be in excellent condition, legible even where smudged, and only needing to be rebound. It was then ignored for the next 100 years. The correspondence between Guglielmo and Palestrina was discovered in 1881, so this continued neglect is still a telling chapter in the history of musicology. The entire contents of the Conservatory library were evacuated during WWII and were still inaccessible in 1949; the archive of S. Barbara was finally accessed by Knud Jeppesen in 1950.
Nine of the masses were attributed to Palestrina, a 10th is now agreed to be by him, and a unique one à 4 for a male choir, previously thought to be lost, may be the very first mass sent to Guglielmo, in 1568, before the commission to set all of them. During the centuries in which they were lost there was no evidence of Palestrina’s use of alternatim, so the attributions in the inventories were in doubt. In 1947 Strunk surmised as much, but only one mass had found its way into Haberl’s edition of 94 Palestrina masses (Breitkopf & Härtel, 1907).
The correspondence is a valuable appendix. Palestrina did many other things for Guglielmo: he advised him on hiring musicians for his court, he corrected the duke’s compositions (rewriting them in score and diplomatically pointing out improvements), he wrote motets and other pieces. He almost got hired for a permanent position. Negotiations for a high salary were interrupted when Palestrina, who had taken religious orders, perhaps in the hope of returning to the Papal Chapel, suddenly married a wealthy widow in 1581. After Guglielmo’s death in 1587 Palestrina had no further contacts with his successor, Vincenzo Gonzaga.
The letters contain references to compositional style, which Beretta interprets. In 1568 Palestrina, already in demand and looking for prestigious opportunities, sent Guglielmo the first mass and offered to write another: ‘long or short or so that the words are heard’, i.e. a missa solemnis for holidays or a missa brevis for weekdays. He promised to send unwritten ‘falsobordoni antichi’ that were sung in the Papal Chapel, i.e. the improvisations sung on Gregorian chant. After putting a motet and a madrigal by Guglielmo into score, he wrote that listeners should enjoy the texts just as they do in ‘musica commune [sic]’, i.e. canzonette and laude. When beginning to compose after his illness, Palestrina started a Kyrie and Gloria ‘studying them on the lute’, i.e. working out the vertical harmonies, as if by realizing their basso continuo. Although another reference to ‘putting [compositions] on the lute’ strikes me as meaning, possibly, writing them down in some form of tablature. Guglielmo wanted the masses to be ‘fugate continovamente et sopra soggetto’ literally, continually fugued, i.e., different from those performed in Rome, in that even short motives were to be imitated autonomously and taken from the cantus firmus of the Mantuan Kyriale.
It would be wonderful to hear these masses. What distinguishes these is said here to be their fantasy and severity, for which they can be considered Palestrina’s ‘arte della fuga’.
Barbara Sachs
Jean Sigismond Cousser (Kusser): La cicala della cetra d’Eunomio Suite Nr. 3
Sechs Consortsuiten für 2 Oboen, Fagott, Streicher & B. c., Urtextausgabe – Herausgegeben von Michael Robertson
Walhall EW748 (Edition Schönborn)
14 + 34pp, €29.80 (score and parts)
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his impressive volume comes with three wind parts, five string parts and an optional written-out continuo realization.It is prefaced by a letter from the current Count of Schönborn-Wiesentheid, whose library contains (amongst many other jewels) the remained of the original print of this set; Robertson, whose doctoral thesis was on such repertoire, wisely adds a Basse de violon to the seven surviving part-books. After an overture come a Sommeil, a Trio de Flûtes (where recorders replace the oboes above the violas), Les Songes, Les mesmes, Marche (key changes from D minor to D major), Trio doucement, Les Gladiateurs, Air (back to D minor), Polichinelles, Arlequins and finally an Air Gayment. Most are through composed, but some are bi-partite. Cousser/Kusser deserves to be better known and Robertson’s plans to issue all six works are to be welcomed.
Caldara: Missa Sancti Francisci
Herausgegeben von Alexander Opatrny
Walhall EW 539
5 + 64pp
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is a substantial volume for a not terribly substantial piece; the Gloria is under 70 bars and the Credo a little over a hundred. That is not to say that the music is not very much worth exploring – Caldara writes well for chorus and, although there are solo sections throughout the work, they are not beyond most amateur singers and could easily be taken by members of a decent choir. It could have been half its size, had the doubling instruments (cornetto and two trombones at the top of the score and bassoon just above the continuo line) been assigned to that very role and their staves combined with the appropriate voice. I doubt I will be alone in finding the distribution of the staves awkward either in passages where the bassetto is supplied by the violins, which are printed above the voices. The introduction and critical notes are only given in German. The score retails at €28.50, with a vocal score and parts also available.
Schultze: Konzert B-Dur für Altblockflöte, Streicher und Basso continuo
Herausgegeben von Klaus Hofmann
Walhall EW 986
5 + 40pp
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he editor of this three movement work has tried – thusfar in vain – to identify the composer; giving him the christian names Johann Christian is apparently an educated guess. Be that as it may, this high baroque concerto with a first movement full of arpeggios and scales, a central adagio in which the strings accompany pizzicato until the final sudden dramatic tutti and a bi-partite triple time finale that adds wide leaps to the technical demands made of the soloist is certainly one that players will welcome. €21.80 for the score, with parts and a keyboard reduction also available.
[dropcap]N[/dropcap]ext in the pile were three editions of arias for voice, soprano recorder, strings and continuo. The earliest is Pepusch’s “Chirping warblers” (EW 980, mezzo, recorder, violin, violin/viola and continuo, 3 + 10pp, €17.50) which was part of a 1715 masque, Venus and Adonis. The original performances involved multiple violinists but editor Peter Thalheimer suggests that one can play the upper string part and another Pepusch’s viola line (which he prints in treble clef). At 49 bars in length, it is not a huge piece, but singers and recorder players alike will enjoy this addition to their repertoire. The set includes a second score without a cover and the necessary parts.
“Quell’ esser misero” by Alessandro Scarlatti (EW 978, soprano, recorder, violin and continuo, 4 + 7pp, €16) is from his 1698 opera, “Il prigioniero fortunato”. A through-composed work of a little over 50 bars (if the vide mark is ignored!), the voice part intertwines with recorder and violin (who overlap but never play together), and the final instrumental phrase ignores the wind instrument and adds a second violin and viola. Thalheimer includes parts for all of the instruments and a second score without cover.
The third is “Cares when they’re over” from Francesco Bartolomeo Conti’s opera “Clotilda” (EW 999, soprano, soprano recorder or violin, strings and continuo, 4 + 10pp, €16.50). This is a full-blooded Da Capo aria with recorder and full string section. Once again the set includes everything required for a performance. The recorder part is quite demanding, while the voice is more charming and graceful, which is always an enjoyable contrast in concert.
Vandini: Konzert D-Dur für Violoncello Solo, 2 Violinen, Viola & B. c.
Herausgegeben von Markus Möllenbeck
Walhall EW 967
8 + 15pp, €16.50
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a colleague and close friend of both Vivaldi and Tartini, it will come as no surprise to discover that this three movement concerto poses considerable challenges to anyone who wishes to play it – double stopping, very high and intricate passagework, extended string crossing motifs. The central andantino is slightly odd in featuring a rather bland solo violin part above the solo cello and continuo; the editor suggests this was undoubtedly for Tartini, but I fear even he would have had his work cut out to make it interesting; of course, the solo cellist has a much easier job, given that (s)he starts on the first beat and ends on the last with no breaks in between. It would be interesting to hear the work, if only to see if it works aurally in which it does not visually.
Brian Clark
Edited by Nancy November
Recent Researches in Music of the Classical Era, 99
A-R Editions, Inc.
xx+226pp
$240.00
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hese six four-movement works (in A, F, D, B flat, G and E flat major respectively) were dedicated to Friedrich Wilhelm, the cello-playing Prussian king who had inspired Mozart and Haydn to write music for him. Förster (eight years Mozart’s senior) was a multi-talented musician, teaching keyboard and musical theory in 1780s Vienna, while playing violin and viola in chamber music ensembles (having been an oboist in the Prussian army earlier in his life!)
After a quick opening movement, the tempo lessens for the second, then a menuetto-trio pairing leads into a lively finale. In fact, these are essentially what by that date had become standard Viennese string quartets. For much of the time the 1st violin dominates, though the cello (as mentioned at the beginning of the review) does regularly take the limelight, and the middle parts – though largely harmonic in function, with some neat figuration – are occasionally also allowed to join in (or even lead) the conversation.
The scores are elegant and spacious without being dominated by white space. As there is no need to worry about page turns, some of the layout seems a little random to someone (i. e., me) who spends his life typesetting music (such as turning a page for a single system of a trio, which then requires a turn back of two pages), but since these scores are for study and not conductors or players, such considerations (and observations) are perhaps irrelevant?
The Authentic Quartet have recorded Förster’s three quartets, op. 21, for the Hungaroton label but I have not been able to locate a version of these six works – now that they have been neatly edited (and A-R Editions do sell performing materials for the set) someone can rectify that situation.
Brian Clark
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Nine German Arias for Soprano, Solo Instrument and Basso continuo…
Edited by Ullrich Scheideler
G. Henle Verlag (968).
ix +42pp +parts for solo instrument, basso and continuo €16.00.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he ‘German Arias’ were intended to be published in vol. 49 of Chrysander’s complete edition in the 1890s. Henle has now produced a cheap but thoroughly edited version. Normally Handel wrote quickly then got his amanuensis to make a clear version, which was then reproduced several times and sometimes he had it printed. In this case, it seems that Handel sent his only copy to Germany.
The Henle edition certainly looks better than the ones I have (or rather, used to have). It consists of a score and separate booklets for the solo instrument (not specified, though ad lib for violin, recorder or oboe) with smaller-stave for voice, basso (single stave), and continuo with the upper two staves in smaller print and sometimes pages spread out in three. The score has a realisation. The nine arias can be sung in sequence, though I’d favour more variety – alternative pieces could also be interspersed.
This is an excellent edition, and good value.
Clifford Bartlett
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Edited by Sarah Clemmens Waltz
Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 100
A-R Editions, Inc.
liv+156pp.
$260.00
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are thirteen songs in this volume; one by Christian Gottlieb Neefe, two by Karl Siegmund Freiherr von Seckendorff, three each by Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg and Johann Friedrich Reichardt, and one each by Friedrich Ludwig Aemilius Kunzen, Friedrich Götzloff, Friedrich Heinrich Himmel and Carl Friedrich Zelter. There is no cause for alarm if these names mean next to nothing to you; Sarah Clemmens Waltz has done a fabulous job, not only in explaining the phenomenon that was Ossianism and its popularity in Germany, but she discusses each of the composers and their contributions in considerable detail. In short, this volume has everything you could possibly need for an Ossian-themed recital – she even gives the range of the piano parts of each!
The texts inspired a rich variety of response from the composers; von Seckendorff’s setting of “Dauras Trauer” is a simple strophic song with a coda that consists of a reprise of the opening eight bars, while Zumsteeg’s “Ossians Sonnengesang” has an additional violin part and moves from the opening B flat major through E major (with some challenging looking double stops for the fiddler in bars 61–63!) and F minor before somehow managing to get back to the tonic 270 bars of arietta, recitative and a slow, surprisingly quiet conclusion. The following number, Zumsteeg’s “Ossian auf Slimora” is even more extensive – 515 bars, again ending slowly and quietly. Himmel’s “Ossian an die untergehende Sonne” also has an independent violin part and is given here with separate voice lines for the German and English version of the text.
Unlike the two other A-R Editions I have reviewed this month, this volume does have to take into consideration that fact that at least some users will want to perform these songs. Thus it strikes me as odd that, for example, the music for song 8 (Reichardt’s “Armins Klage um seine Kinder”) is not placed on facing pages to avoid page turns. The fact that a third page is used for a further five verses of text makes such a layout even more impractical; surely two verses could have been printed below the notes and the remainder in the space below the final system. Götzloff’s “Ossians Klage um Uthal und Ninathona” (the only song in the volume for a bass) is also better suited to a facing pages layout.
The edition itself is impressive, though I wonder if using “[sim.]” might obviate the need for bar after bar of bracketed editorial accents which, no matter how hard the most professional typesetter in the world might work, also strike my eye as rather ugly.
I don’t want to end this review on a negative, though – Clemmens Waltz has done an excellent job in putting together an impressive volume that I sincerely hope will be used as the basis for recitals and recordings!
Brian Clark
Edited by David J. Buch
Recent Researches in the Music of the Classical Era, 98
A-R Editions, Inc.
lxvi+336pp.
$360.00
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s the editor’s enlightening essay informs us, Die verdeckten Sachen (which he translates as “The concealed things”) was the second in a very successful series of operas by Emanuel Schikaneder. The huge volume contains a wealth of information as well as a full libretto of the piece (spoken dialogue and concerted music, with parallel English translation), six pages of critical notes and an appendix with three piano scores of arias that only survive in a piano-vocal score of the piece in the Florence Conservatorio library.
There is no certainty about the identity of the composer of the music; most likely, according to Buch, it was a collaboration between some of the singers in the original cast. That consisted of three sopranos, five tenors and three basses. The orchestra has pairs of flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets as well as strings (including a solo violin that heads for the stratosphere in at least one of the arias) and timpani.
The music is tuneful (the singing voices doubled for much of the time by instrumental lines) and, I imagine, effective in telling the story. I should like to see a production some time – the work’s original success (it was in the repertoire for two decades, and was even translated into Czech!) suggests that it is a good evening’s entertainment.
This is the latest in a sequence of editions of this sort of repertoire from A-R Editions and David J. Buch – fabulous work without which it would be impossible to put Mozart’s music into context. Congratulations to all concerned.
Brian Clark
Critical Edition by Daniela Calcamo, Daniele Cannavò, Maria Rosa De Luca. Introduction by Maria Rosa De Luca
Musiche Rinascimentali siciliane, vol. 26
Leo S. Olschki: 2015 xxxiv + 88 pp. €44.00
ISBN 978 88 222 6420 6
[dropcap]D[/dropcap]omenico Campisi, a long forgotten early 17th-century Sicilian composer and a Dominican monk of Palermo, was rediscovered in the 19th century thanks to abbott Fortunato Santini, who found and copied parts of the 1627 Roman print (Masotti) of his fifth book of motets, Lilia Campi. Complete prints are found in separate part-books in the Santini-Bibliothek in Munich and in the Civico Museo Bibliografico in Bologna. The title plays on the composer’s surname. We do not know for certain who he was: he may have been a Giuseppe Campisi, baptized in Regalbuto in 1588. Of his other collections of sacred motets (1615, 1618, 1622 and 1623), three of which were published in Palermo, only one, a Roman print (Robletti) of 1622, has come to light. Dominican documents show that he already had his bachelor’s degree in theology by 1622, and his promotion to a master’s degree was approved in 1629 in recognition of his musical accomplishments. He is listed, with others of the Barberini circle, in the bibliographical catalogue Apes Urbanae (in honour of Pope Urban VIII) of 1632 by Leone Allacci, which may suggest that he was also active in Rome.
The introduction and critical apparatus are in Italian only, and while the first is valuable reading for the musical, historical and geographical context, it is not particularly relevant to the composer or this work, nor is there specific information about influences on Campisi. So the English reader is really not losing essential information, as the music speaks for itself.
The 22 motets are short (25 to 50 bars of breves), easy, verging on homophonic, and with a figured continuo. They can be performed by single voices or small choirs. Those with more voices present more contrapuntal play between voices that enter and those that accompany. Five are for two voices, seven for three, five a4, four a5 and one a6. Correct modern spelling and punctuation of the Latin texts precede the musical annotations. Their sources are given (the 1592 Vulgate, the Dominican 1603 Breviarum…, and the 1604 Missale), but no translations.
Three musicologists shared the editing, doing seven or eight motets each, as well as working together. As far as I can tell without seeing more than the one page provided in facsimile of the Canto part of the first motet, they are fairly faithful transcriptions, but not sufficiently well-edited. Caveat emptor/musicus! Original errors in the print have escaped attention; most of the editorial accidentals are convincing though a few are surely incorrect, and the need for others (for consistency or to weigh in on ambiguities) was not appreciated; some accidentals “preserved” in this, the first ever modern edition, appeared originally, as often happens in prints, in front of notes they weren’t intended for (e.g. bar 20 of the Canto 1° of Beati qui habitant in the facsimile, the sharp on the f’ was probably meant for the e’ two notes later, confirming that it is no longer lowered); the original continuo figures from the organ part are supplemented in brackets, but are not always corrected, realigned, or noted where wrong, which may be misleading. It is hard to fathom why the occasional wrong notes or figures in the original did not trigger more editorial intervention, because users of a modern edition expect such a beautifully printed score to be thoroughly proofread!
I have a question for the editors. Did Masotti not use demisemiquaver (32nd note) figures? From the facsimile page one can see that his movable characters include two styles sometimes used indiscriminately for semiquavers (16th notes): the little open 2 or the tiny closed 3 hugging the note-stem, the latter of which was, in fact, a 32nd. The mixture is just curious enough to make me wonder if the dot you removed from a quaver in bar 24 of Beati served to make the following pair of quick notes into demisemiquavers, and if pairs of ‘semiquavers’ where the two note forms happen to alternate were perhaps meant to be sung unequally?
I take this occasion to encourage Olschki and other music publishers to print more music per page, with narrower bars and staves. We do not need an inch between minims where these are syllables of a word, and it is actually harder to read the words and phrase the music if we can only see two bars of the score per line… sometimes only one! I read somewhere that the human eye can only focus in the center of the retina, and therefore we spend most of the time reading music looking up and down, right and left, in order to gather and consign to short-term memory what we have to look around to see. Of course, there’s the sorry option of photocopying to reduce the size to a format more practical to perform from. At least the present edition is not too heavy for a music stand, and in Ego flos campi (another reference to the composer?) Olschki easily got three systems (21 staves) per page. That print size would have been better from page one.
Barbara Sachs
New Edition of the Complete Works VII… Works for Ensemble and Catalogue of the Complete Works (FbWV)…
Edited by Siegbert Rampe.
Bärenreiter BA 2928. xii + 100pp, £37.00.
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the conclusion of Bärenreiter’s new edition of Froberger’s output, and is important primarily for the thematic catalogue, which begins at p. 29. It is preceded by two works for 2 vlns, STB & organ – Alleluia absorta est mors & Apparuerunt Apostolis. I do find the asterisks confusing, and it could be helped by notating the parts and score identically: the opening triple time abandons the four-bar patterns for the instruments. They are worth performing. The third piece is a Capriccio a4, probably for SSTB, though there is no need to assume that strings are the only forces available. Attempts to perform it earlier on keyboard were not very satisfactory. The wide gap between the third and fourth parts implies the need for an additional keyboard or plucker. All three pieces are notated in German tablature.
The catalogue is thorough. There may be later or unknown sources, but the editor will make sure that they are circulated to the experts: is there a specific place to find them? There are separate series for Toccatas (101-130), Fantasias (201-214), Canzons (301-308), Ricercars (401-416), Capricci for keyboard (501-525), Partitas, etc., for keyboard (601-659) and music for ensembles (701-707), and finally two pages of appendix; pp. 95-98 list the sources, and there is a list of major editions on p. 99 and a bibliography on p. 100.
I like the idea of a catalogue merged with the complete works. I’ve missed Vols I & II, but I have the rest and enjoy playing them. I don’t have access to the sources, so that limits my abilities. The price is reasonable for Vol. VII, though I’m puzzled by a label at the bottom right of the first page where Bärenreiter refers to “Complete Works Vol VII2”.
The complete Froberger edition is available for £295.50.
Clifford Bartlett
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Edited by Christopher Hogwood.
Bärenreiter (BA 9514), 2015. xxxix + 219pp, £31.00.
[The complete 4 volumes £103.50.]
[dropcap]K[/dropcap]oželuch was born in 1747 near Prague and died in Vienna in 1818. This final volume begins with Nos 38-40: Hogwood chose a Viennese publisher in 1810, though earier prints appeared in 1807 and other issues before the favoured edition. 41-43 were published in London in 1809. The rest were unpublished. “Keyboard” is the best heading for the four volumes, though by the 1800 the casual title of “piano” is appropriate. Dynamics are mostly f, p & sf, with an occasional dolce, cresc. & dim. Ped is often used, with * presumably intended to indicate that the pedal be raised just before the next chord.
Christopher Hogwood produced a magnificent edition. This volume appeared after his death, but I assume that it was all finished before then. Any editions by him have always been prepared with great care. The Introduction is substantial in English, Czech and German, though the thorough critical commentaries are only in English. It ends with a list of the 50 sonatas, including the incipit of the openings. Whether the music stands with Haydn and Mozart is another matter.
Clifford Bartlett
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