Category: Sheet music

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Handel: Agrippina… HWV6

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Piano reduction… based on the Urtext of the Halle Handel Edition by Andreas Köhs.
Bärenreiter (BA 4092-90) £40.00, xix + 350pp.

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]grippina is an amazing opera. Think of Monteverdi’s L’incoronatione di Poppea. The title refers to the leading lady – Nerone is perhaps a minor character. Agrippina is the most powerful figure in Handel’s opera, followed by the younger Poppea. All the male characters are scorned! I’m an enthusiast for the work itself. It isn’t a serious opera at all. I’ve commented on it in various reviews, and it is becoming popular. Surtitles are essential unless it is translated into English… or German or whatever!

A major problem with the Bärenreiter vocal score is its weight. If singers are trying to learn their parts, they will find it heavy to hold. If you place it on a music stand, there are problems in taking the weight or keeping the pages open. It is ludicrous for singers learning the secco recitatives  to have the same chords every time – much more sensible to have the bass figured. There’s no need for the additional material (from p.293-350): those who are interested can get them from the score. However, HHA makes no attempt to make the editions accessible. The scores are expensive, but could easily be passed on to Bärenreiter to produce in something like A4 and sold comparatively cheaply – probably at the price of the vocal score! A further consideration is that my score (A4 format) weights 640g with a price of £30.00: the Bärenreiter vocal score weighs 980g. We don’t bother with vocal scores, but do produce parts. Vocal scores are required for oratorios, but not for operas.

There’s no point in evaluating the work itself when the new score isn’t available. It takes about an hour and a half each way to get to the Cambridge University Music Library – but having been a librarian for several decades, I don’t read in libraries but do have a substantial library at home! I have a variety of microfilms, but I’d only spend time on a full score. Incidentally, the concept of a vocal score didn’t exist in Handel’s time! And, why does HHA insist on printing oboe parts when most of the time all that is needed is cuing the violins, especially since it isn’t clear when both oboes double the violin I or divide between I & II. But I’ve wandered off… Why is HHA so falsely pedantic, and why can’t we get score copies for review?

Clifford Bartlett

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Bach: Organ Works Vol. 4, Third Part of the Clavier-Übung…

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Edited by Manfred Tessmer, updated edition by Christoph Wolff.
Urtext of the New Bach Edition. Bärenreiter (BA 5264), 2015. xvii + 99pp. £18.50.

This is based on Neue Bach-Ausgabe of 1969, Series 4 (organ works), no. 4. The changes are not particularly significant, but there are various improvements or changes. The comparison is with Breitkopf, vol. 6 (EB 8806), which contains Clavierübung, the Schübler Chorales and the Canonische Veränderungen; the edition was published in 2010, so the differences between the two editions are likely to be few. EB has 156 pages including 16 pages of editorial comments priced below £20.00, which is a good value with the other two items.

Bä takes 99 pages of music, with no subsequent editorial commentaries. EB’s introduction is more readable and interesting than Bä. Bä includes eight chorales on two pages with unreduced notes and text. The musical layout is sometimes confusing. The opening Praeludium per Organo pleno  is mostly on two staves; if there is third one, it is sometimes in alto clef. Both editors, however, tend to expand to three lines. The titles are less pedantic here than in the 1969 edition. There is some advantage in the two-stave range, in that there is more flexibility when the division of the middle part may well make readers assume that the modern notation is genuine. The main source was produced by two musical engravers. Sadly, Bach’s manuscript has vanished and editors have no clear choice of correcting between the sources. Luckily the variants are fairly trivial.

Will Bärenreiter follow Breitkopf’s lead and start including additional material in a CD? EB offers far more information but with lower prices.

Clifford Bartlett

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J. S. Bach: Complete Organ Works vol.8: Organ Chorales of the Leipzig Manuscript

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Edited by Jean-Claude Zehnder.
Breitkopf & Härtel (EB8808),2015. 183pp + CD containing musical texts, commentary & synoptical depiction. €26.80.

I bought the Bärenreiter equivalent (vol. 2) back in 1961, three years after it was published. Bach evidently was expecting to produce a larger work than the six Organ Sonatas, assembled around 1730; he then waited a decade before moving on around 1740, using the same paper. He copied 15 pieces, then had a break. BWV666 and 667 were not copied by Bach. The Leipzig Manuscript is now in the Berlin library, Mus. Ms Bach P 271.

The two editions lay out the music in different ways. Bärenreiter prints the final versions first, then the earlier ones together at the end; Breitkopf places the early versions immediately after each piece. It might, however, have been logical to place the early version first with the final version following, so that the player might think more seriously about the differences. I wonder the extent to which the later versions are always better, or is it an automatic assumption? Bärenreiter is set out more spaciously with 214pp preceded by xiv prelims which include nine pages of facsimile and no introduction: for that and critical comments, etc., you need to buy the Kritischer Bericht, which is in German only. Breitkopf has a single numbering of 183pp, which is cut down by actual pages of music because of 22 opening pages of introduction in German and English and nine facsimiles, leaving a total number of musical pages to 152 – 32 pages fewer than Bärenreiter. I don’t, however, have any problems in reading the Breitkopf. There is a German critical commentary at the end of the volume, but much more information (also in English) as well as additional versions are on a CD-ROM. One difference is the Bärenreiter begins each of the later versions with the chorale melody and first verse, whose absence is a pity.

I happen to have read Bach’s Numbers  by Ruth Tatlow (see the November review by Brian Clark). I’m generally suspicious of number symbols, and the older concepts have been rejected. What Bach is concerned with is the total length, not so much as individual pieces but groups of pieces (e.g. the first 24 preludes and fugues) and the idea is most lengthily shown in the B-minor Mass. The “18” is a dubious choice because nos. 16-18 were written after the composer’s death. I wonder whether the first piece in the collection, Fantasia super Komm, Heiliger Geist, was expanded from 48 to 105 bars as the quickest way to complete the round number. The total bars of any individual chorale is only relevant to the total, and the only round sum covers BWV 651-665. It does seem an odd concept and I can’t take it seriously – the 1200 bars do not help guess how to fit such a length into CD discs. But that Bach wrote “The 15” rather than “The 18” could, even without a total bar count, suggest that BWV 666-668 should be left as an appendix.

I think I would only buy the Breitkopf if I was a scholar or an enthusiast or if my copy was falling apart. I haven’t played a church organ for about 50 years, so my copy is used primarily for listening to recordings (though I rarely do that now). The price of the Bärenreiter volume, although older, is roughly the same figure but in sterling, so Breitkopf is somewhat better economy.

Clifford Bartlett

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Cherubini: Requiem – Missa pro defunctis… in C minor…

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Edited by Hans Schellevis.
Score. Bärenreiter (BA 8961), xii + 188pp, £43.50.
[Also available Vsc BA 8961-90, £8.00; wind set £27.50, strings each £5.00.]

Though primarily an operatic composer, Cherubini was fortunate enough to be commissioned for a particularly important event: On 20 January 1817, the remains of the royal Bourbons were moved from previous tombs. On the following day, crowds assembled at the Basilica of St. Denis. The solemn three hours in the morning included Cherubini’s Requiem  (11.am till 2.pm) then after an hour, a Mass ran on from 3.00 to 6.00. Composers like Schumann and Brahms continued the enthusiasm of the work, whileBerlioz stated “that the Requiem is on the whole, to my mind, the greatest work of its author; no other production of this grand master can bear any comparison with it for the abundance of ideas, fullness of form and sustained sublimity of style”.

The singers of the Royal Chapel from 1816 generally had 3.3.3.3 soloists, while the choir comprised 7 first, 6 second sopranos, 12 tenors and 10 basses. The violins were tacent for the first two movements; Fauré also included sections without violins. There were no altos, whether ladies or falsettists. The orchestra is 0222 2230, timps, tamtam and strings.

Cherubini was a specialist in ending with slow diminuendi. The introit has only pp, apart from a few hairpins, which end back to pp – and that lasts 141 largo-sostenuto bars, with low instruments. Following from the quote above, Berlioz wrote “No one before or after Cherubini has possessed this kind of skill in chiaroscuro, the shades and the progressive deteriorisation of sound”. In fact, the only dynamics used are pp, p, f and ff, the last rare. I found a recording online which made no serious attempt to follow the dynamics! The opening, for instance, was definitely NOT pp. The soft indications should be clear, but f covers a much wider range of dynamics. I assume that the durations at the end of each movement are editorial.

This isn’t a work that will receive many performances, but it is well worth hearing. It needs a big church but not necessarily a large choir! I wonder if it has been played at St Denis since 1821?

For the long history of St Denis, it’s worth checking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_St_Denis.

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Zelenka church music

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Missa Dei Filii, ZWV20
Edited by Wolfgang Horn, continuo realisation by Paul Horn
Breitkopf Urtext PB 5565 – Full score €68.90

Missa Omnium Sanctorum, ZWV21
Edited by Wolfgang Horn, Piano reduction by Matthias Grünert
Breitkopf Urtext EB 8052 – Vocal score €12.90

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]oth of these masses were issued as part of Das Erbe deutscher Musik  (volumes 100 and 101 respectively) in editions by two of the experts on the Catholic chapel at the Dresden court during the late 17th and 18th centuries. The Missa Dei Filii  was the first piece by Zelenka that I heard performed on period instruments (the recording available is on youtube) and it is a most impressive piece with all of the trademarks of the composer’s style and equally demanding for chorus and orchestra (strings with woodwinds only). The fact that Breitkopf also sell vocal scores (EB 8050, €19.90 each) and hire performance materials will hopefully encourage choirs to explore the repertoire.

If the vocal score for the Missa Omnium Sanctorum  (his last, dating from 1741) is anything to go by, choirs can have absolute confidence in buying it – and at least three quarters of the 94 pages are for chorus, so there is a LOT of singing in the work. The text is (again) based on Das Erbe deutscher Musik, though with a new keyboard reduction of the instrumental parts (which possibly even I could play most of!) All four voices have solo movements (the Tenor Christe eleison  is perhaps the most virtuosic). There is a video of a live performance here – let it inspire you!

Beautifully printed and laid out, these are exemplary editions of music that deserves to be better known.

Brian Clark

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Nicola Porpora: Vespers for the Feast of the Assumption

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A Reconstruction of the 1744 Service at the Ospedaletto in Venice
Edited by Kurt Markstrom
Collegium Musicum Yale University. Second Series: Volume 21. Y2-021
Full Score (2015), A-R Editions. xxiv + 300 pp.
ISBN 978-0-89579-818-3

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his massive volume contains Kurt Markstrom’s conjectural reconstruction of a Vespers service for the Feast of the Assumption – one of the major celebrations of the famous Ospedaletto, where he was maestro di coro – and contains all of the required elements: five psalms, a Magnificat and two settings of the appropriate Marian antiphon “Salve regina”, as well as plainsong versions of “Deus in adiutorium”, the hymn (“Ave maris stella”) and all the psalm antiphons. In keeping with the Venetian theme, the choral music is scored for divided sopranos and altos with strings and continuo. Three of the movements are not dated 1744 – “Laudate pueri” is from the next year and in the same style so makes an ideal match; the settings of “Dixit Dominus” and the Magnificat, however, exist as sets of parts in Naples (the other material is all in the British Library in London) and scored for standard SATB choir. To make them match, Markstrom has simply transposed the male parts up an octave (taking his lead from indications in another Porpora autograph score where the reverse process is indicated) This is all very well, but in his thorough notes, he himself concedes that they are conceived in a slightly different style. More of an issue for me – although the editor does not share my concerns – are the contrasts in key centre; the sequence runs (all major keys) F, A, A, D, D, B flat, or four sharp keys framed by two flat ones.

A further issue for me is that fact that for the two framing movements, Markstrom prints two separate bass parts. More than once, he says this is because the organ part has figures, and that he wants to be able to show where the keyboard and string parts are at variance. One of his examples is the beginning of movement 11 of “Dixit Dominus”. Since it is impossible to say what actually was in the cello and “contrabassusse” parts, it is difficult to be critical but the whole thing is something of an academic exercise anyway – surely, given that the “soprano 2” part is actually the original tenor part transposed up an octave, the continuo part ought to have been altered, too, so the lower part of the “divisi celli” (what?!) should actually be the upper; what the score currently suggests is that the alto 1 part (doubled by violin 2) is in counterpoint with a second voice heard in octaves! It’s called invertible counterpoint for a reason.

Taken as a whole, however, this is a magnificent achievement. Porpora’s music deserves to be better known. This fine edition inspired Martin Gester to perform the Vespers at the Ambronay Festival to great public acclaim, and one hopes that performance materials (choral scores and instrumental parts) being available on request from the publisher will encourage others to seek it out. There is something wonderful about close-harmony female voices doubled at “the real pitch” by instruments that gives this already beautiful music a magical lift.

Brian Clark

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Frescobaldi: Il Primo Libro di Capricci fatti sopra diversi Soggetti, et Arie (Roma, Soldi, 1624)

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Edited by Christopher Stembridge. (Organ and Keyboard Works II).
Bärenreiter (BA 8413), 2015.xxviii + 90pp, £37.00.

I bought the five volumes edited by Pierre Pidoux and published by Bärenreiter as BA2202 in 1968. Christopher Stembrige is a meticulous editor, but the bolder print of the Pidoux/Bärenreiter does make it easier to read – and I don’t think that a sensible reader will assume that beaming quavers does not imply breaking of phrases. Stembridge’s notation of triple time, however, is worth trying. But neither edition observes the four-stave layout of the original edition. The new edition has useful introductory notes and critical commentary. For study, it is excellent, and I’m glad to have both editions. Academics and serious performers definitely need BA8413, as opposed to BA2202!

Clifford Bartlett

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Mozart: Piano Sonata in A Major K. 331 (Alla Turca)…

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Edited by Wolf-Dieter Seiffert.
G. Henle Verlag, 2015.
iv + 26pp, €7.00

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is not merely an offprint – it is a new edition. Mozart’s pages were split, and only the last page survived until a double leaf of the autograph was recently found in the National Széchényi Library in Budapest. Apart from the limited autograph sheets, the editor also found a copyist’s MS in Prague – an extensive report can be downloaded at www.henle.com. There are two early editions, in 1784 and what was called a fourth impression, though K331 was reset by three engravers.

I’ve compared the new edition with the Bärenreiter Collected Works, in this case quite late (1986). There is a difference in the first two bars: Bärenreiter has a slur for the first two of a group of three quavers, whereas Henle (referring to the 2015 edition) slurs all three. (I don’t edit Mozart, but the problem of slurring 6/8 or 12/8 rhythms in Handel, whose music I spend a lot of time editing, are often ambiguous.) Comments are helpfully noted on the musical pages as well as in the separate critical notes. The newly discovered four pages cover the end of the first movement and beginning of the second. (Why are the bar numbers not stated to show the exact beginnings and ends?) Could not the new pages have been printed at half-size on the two blank pages at the end? The Sonata itself is one of Mozart’s most popular works, and I expect that rival editions will appear.

Clifford Bartlett

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Monteverdi: Gloria a otto voci, SV 307…

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Edited by Barbara Neumeier. iv + 24pp, €24.50.
Carus 27.081.

[dropcap]I[/dropcap] had long been aware that the Gloria a8 wasn’t of obvious Monteverdian origin. The English text uses the term autograph, which in our language usually implies that it was written by the composer, whereas otherwise a term like copyist is used. However, the German term is handschriftlich, which is wider in meaning. What worries me more, however, is that it doesn’t have much relationship with Monteverdi’s music, and the Gloria a8 doesn’t come anywhere near the 1610, 1641 and 1650 Masses. The scoring is for two choirs, each C1 C3 C4 and F4, with three continuo bass parts identical apart from copying slips. It might sound better with a different composer’s name! I’ve edited vast amounts of Monteverdi’s church music, and if anyone had asked me to publish it, I’d have done so as an unknown composer from Naples. There are already two editions, though in larger volumes, and one version I’ve had in my computer for some time.

There are sections with fewer parts, the voices of each choir being of the same range, except for a trio of ATB in choir II for “Domine Deus”: this shoud be described as ATB II. The listing of the rest of the index (p. ii) would be clearer as SATB, SATB than SSAATTBB. The continuo part is very simple, and could have been a useful elementary exercise for those wishing to play from the bass, with simple figuring added.

It is significant that the Kritischer Bericht has no reference to Monteverdi, whereas the editor mentions Monteverdi in general terms in the first paragraph and specifically in the first sentence of the second, and the publisher went too far on the title: the title should surely have been something like ?Monteverdi?. Apologies to Carus, a publisher for whom I have enormous respect.

Clifford Bartlett

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Frescobaldi: Canzonas a4 for Four-part Instrumental Ensemble… Vol II…

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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