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1 LP -
1C 063-30 937 Q - (p) 1977
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1 CD - 8
26505 2 - (c) 2000 |
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VIRTUOSE DEUTSCHE VIOLINMUSIK
DES 17. JAHRHUNDERTS |
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Johann
Rosenmüller (1916-1684)
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- Sinfonia D-dur
- für 2 Violinen und B.c. |
3' 49" |
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Charles Rosier
(1640-1725)
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- Sonate (Suite)
e-moll - für 2 Violinen
und B.c. |
3' 33" |
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Johann Caspar
Kerll (1627-1693) |
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- Sonate F-dur
- für 2 Violinen
und B.c. |
6' 10" |
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David Pohle
(1624-1695) |
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- Sonata A-dur
"Nun danket alle Gott" - für 2 skordierte
Violinen und B.c. |
5' 02" |
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Clamor
Heinrich Abel (2. Hälfte des 17. Jahrh.) |
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- Bataille D-dur
- für 2 Violinen
und B.c. |
4' 40" |
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Johann
Heinrich Schmelzer (1623-1680) |
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- Lamento sopra
la morte Ferdinandi III - für 2 Violinen,
Viola da Gamba und B.c. |
7' 34" |
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- Polnische
Sackpfeiffen - für 2 Violinen
und B.c. |
6' 38" |
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Johann
Michael Nicolai (1629-1685) |
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- Sonatenfragment
B-dur - für Violine,
Viola I und II und B.c. |
5' 13" |
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MUSICA
ANTIQUA KÖLN |
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Reinhard
Goebel, Barockvioline |
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Violine "sub disciplina Nicolai
Amati", ca. 1670 - (Titel 1-3 und
5-8)
- Violine anonym, Deutschland,
frühes 18. Jahrhundert - (Titel 4) |
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Hajo
Baß, Barockvioline |
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Violine von Fedele Barnia, Venedig,
1771 - (Titel 1-3 und 5-7)
- Violine von Carlo
Tononi, Venedig, 1724 - (Titel 4)
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Eva
Bartos, Viola da gamba |
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Viola da gamba nach englischem
Modell des 17. Jahrhunderts,
Muthesius, 1971 - (Titel 1-8) |
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Jonathan
Cable, Viola da gamba |
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Viola da gamba von Georg Amann,
Augsburg, 1712 - (Titel 6 und 8)
- Violone nach Linarolo, Padua, 1585
· Krenn 1952 - (Titel 7)
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Henk
Bouman, Cembalo |
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Cembalo nach Pisauriensis, Italien,
fruhes 17. Jahrhundert · von
Kroesbergen, Utrecht, 1976 - (Titel
1-8) |
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Luogo
e data di registrazione |
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St.
Aposteln, Aachen (Germania) - 7-10
marzo 1977 |
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Registrazione: live /
studio |
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studio |
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Producer / Engineer |
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Gerd
Berg / Johann-Nikolaus Matthes |
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Prima Edizione LP |
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EMI
Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 063-30
937 Q - (1 lp) - durata 42' 39" -
(p) 1977 - Analogico (Quadraphonic) |
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Prima Edizione CD |
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EMI
"Classics" - 8 26505 2 - (1 cd) -
durata 42' 39" - (c) 2000 - ADD |
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Note |
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The
German violin music of the
17th century was
considered to be a first stage
in the development towards J.
S. Bach's
violin works.
Not
only the great representatives
of the South and Central
German school - Biber,
Schmelzer, Westhoff
and J. J. Walther - were
thought to have to been Bach’s
ancestors; studying the
standard works
on the history of violin
literature, we will
also find that each double
stop, each diminution
“double”, even each piece for
violin solo “ refers to Bach
in reality”. A careful
examination of the material -
especially including the
manuscript copies so far
neglected - will bring a
different result. The German
violin music of the 17th
century is the continuation of
early Italian
violin music, represented as
early as in the twenties of
the century in the North of
the Alps - by Marini
in Neuburg, Düsseldorf
and Antvverp,
by Farina and Castelli in
Dresden and Turini in Prague.
In the
second half of the 17th
century, this music gradually
diverged from the Italian
prototype and took up “German”
features: Specific bowings were
developed (ondeggiando,
harpeggiato),
the technique of positions,
double stops and scordatura were
cultivated in an unexpected way -
sometimes just for the fun of
it. But in the long run,
German violin music did not
survive a new changing of form
starting from Italy and
beginning about the middle of
the 17th century. The quest
for new forms and intellectual
content occasionally resulted
in a distinct decline in
duality and quantity of Italian
violin compositions. In 1681
were
published Biber’s eight great
violin sonatas, making a peak
in the history of German
violin music, and Corelli’s
trio sonatas Op. 1, in which
the new formal compositional
and violinistic ideal, which was to
exercise a considerable
influence on the violin music
of the 18th century,
manifested itself for the
first time.
During this period of
reorganization in Italy, we find
an increasing demand for music
in Germany - due to the
revolution in courtly, civil
and clerical life after the
Thirty Years’ War. Impossible
to resort to the music of the
pre-war
period, because baroque
mentality had made its
appearance also in Germany.
So German violin music
received its form from the Italian
music of the first half of the
century: from the canzona
consisting of many parts, from
Dario Castello‘s sonata
concertata with
its virtuoso inner solos, from
the Venetian sinfonia with
its sharp contrasts, from the
early forms of the sonata da
chiesa with
a string of movements,
and, last but not least,
from the sonata da camera.
The technical demands made
upon the performer were
incomparably greater than
they had ever been in Italian
violin music. The idea of
imitating human singing on
an instrument was a good way
off,
it was for the most part
virtuoso music with all its
good and bad qualities of
the genre. Position had been
developed up to the sixth;
as to the bowing, it was
next to impossible to meet
the requirements: shifting
over one or two strings, in
rhythmically and technically
complicated phrases would
hardly result in tuneful
playing. This music was
calculated for effect
- which is typical of any
virtuosity.
The works this recording
presents are taken from the
Rost
anthology, made between 1658
and 1680 by Franz Frost,
cantor at the Baden-Baden
collegiate church, and
containing 160 sonatas,
essentially for two violins
and basso continuo. To all
appearances, he started on
this collection during the
election of the emperor
Leopold I at Frankfurt in
1658, and the fact is that
Schmelzer
and Kerll were
present on this accasion. Rost
may have been in the suite
of his sovereign, Margrave
Wilhelm of Baden-Baden.
Striking, at any rate, that
numerous sonatas by
Schmelzer and the sonata by
Kerll are found among the
first twenty numbers of the
anthology, and he surely
took them from the
composers’ manuscripts
himself.
Other compositions were
taken from contemporary
printings - his copies
showing the same mistakes -
but thanks to the good
relations of the margraves
in Baden-Baden with the
imperial family in Vienna,
he had access to
compositions by the late
imperial chapel-masters
Valentini
and Bertali, but also
Schmelzer’s sonatas, to
complete his anthology.
Concerning the history of
German violin music. Rost's
collection is beyond all
price, since nearly all
important printings and
manuscript copies of the
17th century - the titles
and number of
which we
know
from lexicographical data
and inventories - were
destroyed during periods of war,
secularization
or various transformations of
style and form.
The compositions in Rost's
collection are separate
pieces, nearly without
exception and so it can be
compared with Düben‘s
anthology, which,
however,
is concerned vvith the
violin playing of Northern
Germany.
Johann Rosemüller's
sinfonia is taken from the
five-part sonata da camera,
composed in 1670. The two
viol parts and the part of
the basso obligato,
resulting from diminutions
of the thorough bass, are
missing in
Rost‘s
transcription. This method
of reducing polyphonic
sonatas to the minimum
instrumentation of the trio
comes up to the standard of
baroque music making. Georg
Muffat
noted in the preface to the
five-part sonatas Armonico
tributo (1682):
“They can be performed only
a tre, and you can use the
two violins and a violoncino
or a viola da gamba for the
ground bass". Rost's collection
contains several examples of
these trio reductions.
The sonata by Charles
Rosier, born
at Liège,
is a suite with a free,
introductory piece in the Italian
style, an allemande,
courante and sarabande in
the way of the French
lutenists.
Kerll’s
sonata with its two great
solo parts in the stylo
phantastico shows the
influence of Dario
Castello`s sonata
concertata. The
elaborateness of these solo
parts results from the
identity of both violin
parts, so concertizing one
after the other and against
each other. The work
consists of four
thematically different short
pieces in the style of the
canzona, which are twice
repeated, and final cadences
full of fervour, linking and
rounding off the greater
parts. Abel's pataille shows
an approach to sonata-form
with its several individual
‘movements`. The first two
sections are loosely
connected, following the
tradition of the German
suite. - The scordatura,
i.e. alteration of the
fifths between the strings
of the violin in thirds,
fourths etc., is considered
to be
a specifically South German
technique. The scordatura
alters the resonance and
sound of
the violin and enables the
inclusion of double stops,
unplayable in mormal tuning.
Rost's collection contains
only few scordatura sonatas,
unlike the more curious work
by Schutz’s pupil David
Pohle; the violins are tuned
A-E-A-C sharp.
In
Catholic countries it was
customary to perform
instrumental music in church
- with the exception of wind
instruments, vvhereas the
Protestant Church strictly
prohibited the use of any
pure instrumental music. It was
Dietrich Becker, a Hamburg
violinist who
hit upon an expedient;
according to Walther‘s
Lexicon dating from 1732, he
had “set sonatas for a
violin, a viola da gamba and
ground bass
to chorales and performed
during vespers", Pohle’s
five-part
variation sonata was
probably composed for church
use, too.
South German taste comes to
light in the incomplete
sonata composed by the
Stuttgart chapel-master at
the court, Nicolai,
which
was
probably taken from the work
Dritter Theil Instrumentalischer
Sachen (1682) now
lost. A solo violin is
opposed to a group of deep
strings in homophonic-chordal
style which
are the background to the
expressive solos of the
violin. It
is also in the first section
of Schmelzer’s composition Lamento
auf den Tod Ferdinand III.
that the first violin stands
out from the other
instruments. The 49 bars of
the lamentation symbolize
the age of the deceased - 49
years. Whether this work
is based on a programme, so,
for example, mourning,
funeral bell, church-going
and funeral repast remains
an unsolved question exposed
to speculation. At any rate
it is one of Schmelzer’s
ripest works.
As to the Polnische
Sackpfeiffen, he shows
himself in different
colours. It
is a canzona closely
connected with
Farina’s Capriccio
stravagante.
Sentimental euphony, jarring
bagpipes, parts in unison of
shocking scantiness,
pathetic cadences where not
expected, a closing which is
none - to put it briefly, an
accumulation of twinkling
gags. We
are still wondering
whom he actually wanted to
lead up the gardenpath, the
Polish beer-hall fiddlers or
the Italian
musicians at the Viennese
court.
Concerning the
performance
Reviving
the authentical style of
17th century musicmaking,
one will
meet with
some difficulties. Contrary
to the 18th century music with
its detailed reference
books, we
are thrown back upon
comments in contemporary
letters and prefaces,
retrospective references in
manuals of the 18th century.
As a general principle, “the
steady, extensive course of
the bow on
the violin", postulated by
Heinrich Schütz
in the preface to the Symphoniae
Sacrae, i.e. the Italian
bowing,
must be given preference
over the short, emphatic bowing
of Lully`s school.
Rhythmical irregularity of
notes of equally noted value
was
not made a rule -
according to the French
practice, but we
considered it to be a
deliberate ornament following
Caccini’s example. Since the
source specifies almost no
trills at all, some were
included in cadences, and so
were mordents and other "graces".
The trill is frequently
started from the main note,
in order to avoid
unauthorized parallels, and
to make allowance
for the trill as a melodic
ornament - because it became
a purely harmonic ornament
as late as in the 18th
century. The ground bass is
mainly performed in
accordance with the Italian
usage.
The ensemble musica
antiqua köln,
founded in 1974, has since
been performing baroque
chamber music works
on authentical instruments,
with
the stress on early Italian
violin music, German violin
music before Bach and French
ensemble music. The
repertoire of the group
comprises works
by Farina, Marini,
Schmelzer, Biber, Couperin,
Leclair and others.
Reinhard
Goebel
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EMI Electrola
"Reflexe"
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