Contents

• Editorial
• Reports on Easter 2004
• State Reports
• Music Review: Duets for Treble and Vass Viols
• Gambello 2004
• Saraband Music
• Consortium
• AGM
• The Score
• The Marais Project
• Voices and Viols
• Viols at ADC
• Technical Tip
• Viols on the Web
• Easter 2005

Duets for Treble and Bass Viols edited by Patrice Connelly

Saraband Music (SM 52) at $26.40 (inc. GST)

Meg Corlette and I enjoyed making our way through this delightful collection of short works, some of which were very familiar, and others which we had never played or heard before - always a nice feature in a collection of this kind.

We played them all on our two bass viols and then on treble and bass as written. We were happy to find that with only one or two exceptions they worked well either way. The arrangements are well thought out and interesting. Our least favourite was the Musette (Bach) because of its associations with early piano exams! Each piece has its own challenges, e.g. leaps in the bass in the Musette and chaconnne (Monteclair), and double stopping and reading alto clef in the Boismortier. The Carmina (anon) we found especially lovely, although we did not know quite how fast it should go - perhaps some indications of tempo would be helpful seeing this is at the "easier end of the spectrum". We found the two sharps (Musette and Borey) a difficult key to play in. Mostly we found good balance between the parts and opportunities for ornamentation here and there.

Our favourites were the Duet (Certon), Pastime with Good Company (Henry VIII), air (Handel) (which had a beautiful dialogue between the parts), Agnes Dei (Josquin de Prez), chaconne (Monteclair) and Carmina (anon) - we loved the contrary and parallel motion - although in our opinion it worked better with 2 basses. The octaves were hard to get in tune. The Agnes Dei worked better on Tr and B as written as on the basses the parts were too close together. Recommended.

Di Ford