The Early Music Review
Clifford Bartlett
August 2006, No. 114
EDITION HH
HH has higher standards than most smaller publishers of early music, both in appearance and scholarship. They are fortunate to have the services of Michael Talbot (editor of the AIbinoni & Torelli) Christopher Hogwood (of the Gelinek), respectively a musicologist concerned with performance and a performer with the highest musicological standards.
Talbot and Albinoni are naturally associated names which combine in an edition of the continuo cantata Di tante ree sciagure (HH 35 143; £ 9.95). It’s a typical ‘my love has gone away’ piece in G minor, gentle rather than distraught, with two recits and two arias. It’s not going to convince doubters that Albinoni is a great composer, but it is pleasing to the singer (who doesn’t require phenomenal technique) and listener. The comments on performance (e.g. you don’t have to have both cello and harpsichord) are sensible, but I wonder if it is really necessary to add figures to the bass, in view of the player having a score. The edition has the main copy with realisation and two unrealised scores marked ‘Soprano voice’ and ‘Basso continuo’. The page turns don’t work for the cello: it might have been better to have put the recit on page one and squashed the arias onto an opening each.
Giuseppe Torelli’s Sonata in A (HH 30 116; £11.95) is an example of a type of sonata that was more common in the early 17th century for treble, partially independent melodic bass, and continuo for organ. This is for ‘Violoni é Viola é basso Continuo’. The source is the much-quoted MS that once belonged to Thurston Dart; it was unavailable for sometime after his death but is now British Library Add 64, 965. It is an anthology linked with Pepusch which, among much other music, contains three sonatas by Torelli for two violins without bass, two more with bass, and the sonata edited here (the less specific ‘viola’ in the source is called cello in the edition). This is useful way of giving the cello something a bit more extrovert in a violin recital. The idea of adding a second cello seems a bit odd, since the cello generally follows the contours of the continuo anyway.
I must confess that if I had heard Josef Gelinek, I had forgotten him. Mozart heard him improvising on a tune from one of his operas when he visited Prague for Don Giovanni in 1787 and recommended him to the Kinsky family, with whom he spent 15 years in Vienna as priest, piano teacher and tutor. He specialised in variations, of which 120 sets survive. His Eight Variations on Wie stark ist nicht dein Zauberton’ from The Magic Flute are far better than the hack work one might expect (HH 10 172; £9.95).
We are grateful to the editor of The Early Music Review for permission to reproduce this review.
