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Chelys Australis Volume 3, 2003
Johann Gottlieb Graun: Concerto in A minor for viola da gamba & orchestra, W22. Edited by Vittorio Ghielmi
Éditions Minkoff, Geneva 1998. Facsimile score and modern printed parts. Unabridged critical edition of the concertos for viola da gamba and orchestra, vol. 2
 Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702 or 1703-1771) has made a unique, significant and still relatively unknown contribution to gamba music. He has provided gamba players with a major contribution in the two great Italian instrumental genres which are otherwise under-represented in the gamba repertoire: the concerto and the sonata. Solo gamba concertos, in particular, are almost unknown in the repertoire; many would say for obvious reasons, to do with the relative power of the gamba and the accompanying instruments of the violin family. However, Graun wrote at least six and up to eight surviving works in this genre, more than all other composers together, as well as at least four concertos with gamba as part of a group of soloists. He would never have continued down this path if the first had been a dismal failure!As far as I know, this is the first publication of a Graun solo gamba concerto (they were never published in the eighteenth century), and only the second publication of a concerto for solo gamba with "orchestral" accompaniment - that is, four-part strings or more. The other available concerto is the one by Tartini, which has been published by Breitkopf & Härtel (No. 7430) as a gamba concerto, despite internal evidence suggesting that it was written for the cello. Madame Minkoff has done a great service to gamba players with her many facsimile publications. It is good to see her turning to the neglected German and specifically Berlin School repertoire. The edition has been prepared by Vittorio Ghielmi, a virtuoso who has explored and performed this repertoire more than any other. The good thing about the Graun concertos and sonatas is that they offer the advanced player who is perhaps familiar with Marais, Forqueray and Schenck a rather different experience. They unite some gamba techniques which were developed in the French golden age with other skills which would be more at home in Italian violin music, and package the whole in the three-movement Italian concerto form. Briefly stated, the reason for this is that Graun, a Saxon violin virtuoso who was steeped in the Italian tradition of Vivaldi and Tartini, worked closely with Ludwig Christian Hesse, his colleague and gamba virtuoso at the court of Frederick the Great. Hesse was trained by his father, who famously studied in Paris with both Marais and Forqueray the elder.(1) Hesse obviously played a French seven-string viol: unlike most German music, Graun's works often require it, this one included. This work is a good place to start among the Graun concertos, as it is attractive, but not the most difficult of them. It contains fast leaps of a tenth, but these are common enough in gamba music. The passages of parallel thirds, including fast turns concluding a trill, are a Berlin School trademark. Fortunately these are normally within the frets. A variant of this technique is the double-stopped third with a trill on each note, including trills between two minor thirds. There are also long scale passages high on the instrument, with trills and shifts, all under one bow; and one chordal passage reminiscent of Forqueray. Finally, the player will find fast passagework across the strings, also sometimes above the frets, typical of the Italian violin style. However, Graun, like Marais, has a superb knowledge of gamba technique, and the work is brilliantly written to show off the beauty of the instrument, rather than to make life difficult for the player. It is certainly easier than most of the Forqueray pieces, and well worth the effort. The edition is presented as a facsimile of the score, which is the only source of the concerto, plus modern printed parts for solo gamba, first and second violin, viola and basso. The score, with its elegant title page and beautifully clear music hand, is a joy to behold. And you need it to check on several ambiguities in the printed solo part, mostly concerning accidentals. The editor has failed to use helpful cautionary accidentals (movement I, bar 58 & II, 49) which are in the original facsimile score. He has placed an obligatory accidental which is also in the score (I, 132) in brackets, which would imply that it is either cautionary or editorial. In movement II, bar 32, a correct editorial accidental has been inserted, but the necessary naturalisation later in the bar is omitted. Elsewhere (II, 49) an unplayable and harmonically dubious chord has been put into the solo part without comment, although other mistakes have been corrected. Triplets have not been marked as such; like the original copyist, the editor has relied on the beaming to identify them. One expects this in an original copy, but in a modern print it can cause brief confusion. The matters mentioned in the above paragraph are to some extent symptomatic of the minimalist Minkoff style. Another example is the foreword, which might be acceptable in a cheap photocopy-on-demand production, but is inadequate for a critical edition which will cost you 140 Swiss Francs. It consists of two paragraphs, admittedly in four languages including English. The first paragraph gives the original source, and mentions the dissertation by Monika Willer on the concertos of the Graun Brothers. The second paragraph is devoted entirely to discussion of a modern copy of the work dating from the end of the nineteenth century, and concludes helpfully with the sentence, "It is of no interest for the present edition". The editor also contrasts this work with "the Darmstadt concertos". He does not explain that most of the Graun gamba concertos are preserved in copies made by Ludwig Christian Hesse, now found in the music library in Darmstadt. Whereas the present concerto is found in a carefully-copied score which was prepared for Princess Anna Amalia, the music-loving sister of Frederick the Great, the Darmstadt concertos are all found in parts, obviously made by Hesse for his own use. Ghielmi also writes that the violone is not mentioned in the score. He should perhaps have pointed out that three of the Darmstadt concertos do have specific violone parts. In these works, the violone plays throughout the ritornellos, but is mostly silent in the solo sections, except for brief but effective punctuations. The use of a violone (which in Berlin music of this period is clearly a double bass in the 16-foot register) is therefore quite appropriate. There is no editorial guidance on the performance of the many appoggiaturas (a short quote from C. P. E. Bach on how long to play them might have been helpful) or on the arbitrary nature of the double-stops in this repertoire. This piece exists in only one source, but others have many variants, which show great freedom on the part of the copyists in the addition of double-stops in thirds and sixths to a melody line. Contemporary writings show us that Hesse was a spectacular and fiery performer: he probably improvised them at will in an impressive display of technique. This means that the modern player has some licence to add and remove doublestops according to taste. The same would apply to the double trills. The editor's defence against the above criticisms might be that the work is intended for advanced players, and it is not his job to give them instruction in music history or performance practice. However, many issues I have mentioned above relate to specific research areas in which Ghielmi is certainly knowledgeable, but has unfortunately chosen to remain silent. Possibly a complete preface is planned for the whole series; however, there is no other volume in the series mentioned on the publisher's website (http://www.minkoff-editions.com/). An adequate critical commentary is provided, again in four languages. The editor has reproduced the score with no additions, as is customary with facsimile editions. This means that the bar numbers, which are marked in the parts and in the critical commentary, are not found in the score. The score also lacks figures on the bass part for the continuo player, who must either improvise from the score, or go through it and mark the figures in. An extraordinary error has been made in the modern printed parts: there is often literally no time for page turns, which are frequently in the middle of a phrase. For the soloist this means a turn in the middle of the first solo section. For the tutti players the problem is worse, as they would normally never memorise their parts, and would very likely be playing with only one per part. Most of the above criticisms relate to issues which are peripheral rather than essential. This is an exciting piece, one which will broaden the horizons of gamba players and potential audiences. Éditions Minkoff are to be commended for taking the risk on a work which must have a limited market, but which deserves to reach a wider audience. I would encourage any advanced player to try it out. Michael O'Loghlin 1) See Michael O'Loghlin, "Ludwig Christian Hesse and the Berlin Virtuoso Style", JVdGSA 35 (1998) 35-73. This article also recounts an amusing anecdote about Hesse senior and his two celebrated teachers (38-39). Benedetto Marcello: VI Sonata a tre - due violoncello o due viole di gamba e violoncello o basso continuo. Opera seconda
Éditions Minkoff, Geneva 2000. Facsimile partbooks
Benedetto Marcello, not to be confused with his older brother Alessandro, also a composer, is much loved by cellists, most of whom have played at least one of his Six Sonatas for Cello and Basso Continuo, published in Amsterdam in 1732. Born the year after JS Bach in 1686, Marcello lived a very privileged life as a Nobleman who had a strong affinity for the arts and for Music in particular. Marcello's own instrument was the cello and he writes well for it at an intermediate level. The Six Sonatas mentioned above were so popular during the composer's lifetime that they were reprinted in both London and Paris but not so Marcello's set of VI Sonate a Tre for Due Violoncello [sic] o Due Viole di Gamba e Violoncello o Basso Continuo, the latter being referred to as cimbalo in the running title. Minkoff Edition's newly published facsimile is a most welcome one, although their edition is not the first in recent years; Schott published them in 1988. Both use the only known surviving copy in a public collection, that of the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademiens Bibliotek in Stockholm.  For those who play gamba only, let me warn you; these are very Italianate pieces, clearly intended for the cello. A keen viol player could tune down the low D to C but would still have to forgo the pleasure of the occasional chords that appear at the ends of movements. For duo cellists, these sonatas are a welcome and lusciously lyrical addition to what is otherwise a rather frugal repertoire [especially in the Baroque period, in which solo sonatas abound but not trio sonatas for two obbligato cellos and continuo]. What makes them really attractive is that they work extremely well as sonatas for three cellos without keyboard.It is probably because these sonatas were first published in Amsterdam by Witvogel, in what may well be a pirated edition, that the viola da gamba option is mentioned. In North Western Europe, the viola da gamba had not yet been ousted by the cello, hence the choice of instrument. The facsimile format in three separate part books means that there is no score for the continuo player. Whilst this is fine for a third cellist, it does marginalise a keyboard continuo player, particularly in the second movement [Presto] of Sonata II, where a semibreve, held in the bass for 4 bars needs 4 separate chords per bar. They are so small and squashed in the facsimile that they are only legible with great difficulty. Here, I feel, some clarification in the introductory remarks might have been helpful. One glaring error in the final chord of the second cello part in the Grave movement of Sonata II should also have been noted. Several careless mistakes appear in the English Introduction; the sonatas are designated as three movement works [they are all in four movements], the slow third movements ending mostly with an "interrupted" cadence [they nearly all finish on imperfect cadences]. The Introduction starts with the statement that these sonatas were "printed around 1734". In paragraph three, we are told that the publisher's own catalogue places them in 1736. Were the sonatas published two years after they were printed? These small anomalies are not too significant but the size of the footnote annotations in the text is. They are printed the same size as the dates, leading sometimes to confusion, as in the following example: .......the XII SONATE ....published in Amsterdam by....around 1732, 14 Italian works of a type very similar to the present sonatas. This makes nonsense until one realises that the "14" refers to footnote number 14. Small superscript numbers would have solved this problem. One doesn't need the introductory remarks, though, to enjoy this thoroughly charming music. Both cello parts are given the same importance and require a similar level of ability. [The highest note needed is a 'B' above middle 'C'.] The slow movements indulge in suspensions and enough seventh chords to create a richness without being so long as to highlight the reliance on sequential repetition. Marcello also writes with a certain whimsical playfulness in the fast movements. In one of these [the final Presto in Sonata II], the continuo part drops out and leaves the two cellos chasing one another in a lively, imitative movement characterised by 7-bar phrases. In Sonata III, almost the entire second movement Allegro consists of a one-bar figure thrown back and forth between the two cellos. I recommend these Sonatas heartily to those cellists who enjoy chamber music for multiple cellos [who doesn't?] and to those needing an alternative to the Handel Sonata for two cellos [which is really for two oboes]. The parts are generally easy to read and fun to play. The music is so good, that gamba players should try them too. Polly Sussex Jean (?) de Sainte-Colombe: Recueil de Pièces pour basse de viole seule (c.1680)
Facsimiles of MS9469 and MS9468, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh (Manuscrits Panmure). Introduction by François-Pierre Goy. Éditions Minkoff, 2003
Here is a mystery to defeat even Hercule Poirot himself. Did Le Sieur de Sainte-Colombe, as this composer has been known for many years, write solo bass viol music or not? Who was the real Sainte-Colombe? How many children did he really have? Was he really a hermit? Did he really refuse to become a court musician? This review will solve none of these questions. We know Sainte-Colombe for his Concerts a deux violes esgales, and these are wonderful pieces of music which are now becoming better known through recent recordings. We also know a little of Sainte-Colombe as a teacher and innovator through the writings of his students: Rousseau, Danoville, Marais and others. We find snippets of biographical details through the writings of Titon du Tillet, who mentions Ste-Colombe's concerts at home with his two daughters. There is also music by Sainte-Colombe le fils, but did the father have one or many sons? Many of the problems with identifying the composer of these works are discussed in the excellent preface by François-Pierre Goy, who is an authority on music of this time. He recounts some of the evidence from the various sources (meticulously footnoted), and covers the various theories of the identy of the composer, from Pierre Guillot's suggestion that he was really Augustin Dautrécourt, otherwise known as Sainte-Colombe, who was a music teacher in Lyons between 1657 and 1659. This is amplified by Jean-Marc Baffert, who discovered that "Augustin Dandricourt dit de Sainte-Colombe" was a music master in Lyons between 1662 and 1670. This thesis seems to be discounted by the fact that the Sainte-Colombe who studied with Hotman and wrote the Concerts worked only in Paris.  Jonathan Dunford, an American gambist resident in Paris, and actively researching this music has discovered one Jean de Sainte-Colombe, and excavated his biographical details, and those of two daughters. But as M. Goy points out, "these archive references ... do not provide any clues that enable us to accept or reject with absolute certainty that he is indeed our viol player". (p. 33) Goy gives many examples of the things which are open to interpretation, and it will take something of a definitive link to resolve this conundrum.The next little mystery can be ironed out though, and that is how this music ended up in Scotland. James and Harie Maule were sons of the second Earl of Panmure, George Maule. The brothers went to Paris in 1677, and Harie returned to Edinburgh in 1680, taking delivery of four viols sent from Paris by his brother soon afterwards. James was a violinist, and he stayed in Europe. Harie went to the Netherlands in 1682. Both of them seem to have got caught up in the political skirmishes of the time, and had rather chequered careers, particularly James, who died in Paris in 1723. Harie returned to Scotland in 1719 and remained there until his death in 1734, presumably continuing to build up his music library in the meantime. During his time in Europe, he had collected publications by Lully, Marais, Dumont, Matteis and Verdier, as well as these manuscripts of music by Sainte-Colombe which were copied in France, probably in the early 1680s. The same scribe copied both mss, but his identity is unknown, and does not match the handwriting of Harie Maule. The next mystery concerns the manuscripts, their concordances and their contents. These two manuscripts are not the only sources for the 180 solo bass viol pieces. A few years ago, Minkoff also published a facsimile of solo bass viol pieces by Sainte-Colombe from the Tournus manuscript, a work of a professional French copyist which probably dates from after 1689 which contains 144 pieces of which 136 are for solo bass viol. What we seem to have are the two manuscripts from Edinburgh, which between them contain entirely different pieces, but where a suite in G major is formed with four pieces from each ms. There are 108 pieces in all, so there is some overlap between Tournus and Panmure. A remaining source is the score of the Concerts, which is in fact the only collection explicitly attributed to Sainte Colombe. However, the pieces in the manuscripts can confidently be attributed to him, as there is some duplication with some of the Concerts, and also many of Sainte Colombe's specific stylistic and compositional traits. Goy says that there are seventeen dances from the Concerts which have concordances in the manuscripts for solo viol, and there are many pieces which bear thematic similarities to works in the Concerts. This brings me to my big question. Having played some of these "solo" pieces, to me they seem to be sketches for the Concerts, and not written as solos at all. That doesn't mean that some of them may not work (or have been conceived) as solo works, but having seen this music I have to ask: did Sainte-Colombe intentionally write any solo bass viol pieces at all? So, to the music in this book. Much of it is not very difficult. There are many preludes, allemandes, sarabands, gigues, menuets, courantes and gavottes, plus the odd Ballet, and some pieces with unusual names, such as Pianelle (this title also occurs in the Concerts), Friouly, and Vielle. Other pieces, such as the Prelude on p. 94 are somewhat more challenging, and could certainly be performed in concert where many others could not. The scribe seems to have had two different periods of writing, one where his hand was neat and where battements are marked as a "t", and the other where he got rather messier and used crosses for his trills. In general though, it is not hard to read this music, though the forgetfulness in changing clef, and the lack of any warning of this between staves, as well as the frequent lack of key signature on some lines makes good concentration in sight reading a must. Three clefs are used: bass and alto mainly, but the F clef on the top staff-line is included at times. A seven string viol is necessary for these pieces, though the bottom string is not used too often. The first pieces are numbered, but this system dies after piece no. 14. If performing from this book, I'd suggest numbering the pieces in your copy for ease of use. The critical commentary is a useful tool musicologically, though there is the odd mistake. For example, Gavotte, no. 11 (which has to be a bassline) is repeated later in the book with a couple of minor variants. In the commentary, the reader is wrongly referred back to piece no. 12. But any mistakes apart, the commentary shows where the pieces are in the Concerts, and this is most helpful. It also links up the pieces in the other two manuscripts. Editing and publishing the books of Sainte Colombe "solo" pieces was a mammoth task, and it has been achieved in fine style. But as far as the music goes, one has to wade carefully through these manuscripts to find those pieces which could be performable. For anyone studying the music of Sainte Colombe or French viol music of this time, they are an invaluable source. But for those who just want a good piece to play, my acquaintance with this volume has convinced me that they are mostly sketches for the Concerts or other works which may now be lost, and are of limited use to viol players who have little interest in musicology. Patrice Connelly |