Corelli's op.5: Text, act... and reaction

Early Music

Volumn 24, Issue 4, 1996, Pages 635-640

  Holloway, John ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 63849160173     PISSN: 03061078     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/em/24.4.635     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. N. Zaslaw, 'Ornaments for Corelli's Violin Sonatas, op.5'
2. R. E. Seletsky, '18th-century variations for Corelli's Sonatas op.5'
3. P. Walls, 'Performing Corelli's Violin Sonatas, op.5', Early music, xxiv (1996), pp.95-115, 119-30, 133-42 respectively
4. Niels Martin Jensen addressed it in some detail in his paper 'The performance of Corelli's chamber music reconsidered' for the Nuovissimi studi corelliani in 1978, as did Peter Allsop in The Italian 'trio' sonata (Oxford, 1992), chap. 2; but neither of them explored the implications for figured-bass realization inherent in their observations, being concerned to make the case for performances of Italian sonatas by bowed strings alone, without realization of the bass when there are no figures
5. 'While it is positively liberating for performers to realize that bass lines do not necessarily imply at least two players, it is hard at present to conceive of recording all 12 sonatas with the accompaniment of just harpsichord or cello. Such a project might seem to depend on a mixture of pedantry and commercial folly.' Walls, 'Performing Corelli's Violin Sonatas', p.135
6. It is important to recognize the stylistic judgement in this attribution, as such comments as Seletsky's about the unplayability on the violin of the three-note chords in his ex.5 are not strictly accurate if the technique of arpeggiation is accepted: there are many examples in the works of such violinist-composers as Leclair and Veracini of similarly 'unplayable' chords
7. We are most grateful to Harry Johnstone for allowing us sight and use of his newly discovered Festing ornamentations before his explanatory article was published. Regarding the Tartini ornaments it is perhaps worth observing that the source is not Tartini's autograph, so the attribution is presumably made on the assumption that it is a pupil's copy of a dictated exercise - a common origin of Tartini sources. For this information and for her considerable help in tracking down the Walsh Anon and Dubourg ornaments I am indebted to Gloria Eive of San Leandro, California. I would also like to thank Dr Thomas Gartmann, formerly of the Musikwissenschaftliche Institut der Universität Zurich, for considerable help under great time pressure, giving me access to, for example, the Roman ornaments, and much else besides: a model of co-operation between academic and practical musicians
8. See Galeazzi as quoted in J. E. Miles, 'Directions for improvised ornamentation in Italian method books of the late eighteenth century', Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxxi (1978), p.505: 'the ornamentation should aid the principal sentiment, not spoil it; hence the most skilful performer is one who knows how to enter the mind of the composer, be fully conscious of the character of the composition, increasing its energy ...'
9. See, for example, C. P. E. Bach, and Antonio Lorenzoni: 'No variations should be made without first playing the simple melody; unless you do so, the listener will not be able to judge them as variations'
10. (Miles, 'Directions for improvised ornamentation'); but here again we are dealing with sources from other times and different places. North and Tosi at least imply that Adagios received some ornamentation whether repeated or not, though one wonders what North in particular would have made of the Roman ornaments!
11. These observations do not bear on the Marx-Zaslaw skirmish over authorship of the Manchester Anonymous manuscript; I would merely observe that since the manuscript concerned is in two different hands, and one of the pieces of music is not by or based on Corelli, there seems to be more investigation to be done there
12. It is interesting to note that Tosi, while clearly advocating 'extempore Embellishments' for the finished artist, also suggests: 'Let a Scholar provide himself with a Variety of Graces and Embellishments, and let him make use of them with Judgement' (Pier Francesco Tosi, Observations on the Florid Song, trans. J. E. Galliard (2/1743), chap. VII, §9). If Seletsky is correct in dating Dubourg and Roman to before 1721, then Dubourg was at most 18 years old, Roman a relatively elderly 27. However, both were for a period before this 'scholars' - students of Geminiani, who may therefore be a strong candidate for the role of 'earlier source' for them both
13. 'Intuition ist zwar eine der wichtigsten Eigenschaften eines guten Musiker, sie kann aber das Wissen nicht ersetzen': N. Harnoncourt, programme note for Le nozze di Figaro, Zürich Opera, Spring 1996
14. S. Ravens, 'Bach's choir revisited', Early music review, xix (April 1996), pp.6, 7
15. Francesco Geminiani, The Art of Playing on the Violin (1751), ex. XVIII, 'Contains all the Ornaments of Expression, necessary to the playing in a good Taste'