seven trio sonatasby johann joachim quantz; mary oleskiewicz;siz quartets for flute, violin, viola,...

Seven Trio Sonatas by Johann Joachim Quantz; Mary Oleskiewicz; Siz Quartets for Flute,Violin, Viola, and Basso Continuo by Johann Joachim Quantz; Mary Oleskiewicz; DavidSchulenbergReview by: Michael TalbotNotes, Second Series, Vol. 62, No. 3 (Mar., 2006), pp. 806-809Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4487659 .

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806 NOTES, March 2006

standards set by Brett that have obtained throughout The Byrd Edition.

It remains to say a few words about the future of this edition. It has been most suc- cessful, but nevertheless the musicological world has moved on these thirty years, and will continue to do so. Attitudes regarding the use of original pitch and note values are now different. Research on Anglican music has advanced steadily (see, for instance, Andrew Johnstone's article "'As It Was in the Beginning': Organ and Choir Pitch in Early Anglican Church Music," Early Music 31, no. 4 [November 2003]: 507-24). And although the keyboard music is in a separate series and its many developments do not impinge directly upon The Byrd Edition, in the related sphere of consort music, a major piece (no. 34 in vol. 17, Consort Music, ed. Kenneth Elliott [1971]) has been reconstructed, published elsewhere (Fantasia a' 4 no. 3for Viols or Recorders,

ed. Warwick Edwards [Wyton: King's Music, 1995]), and recorded (Consort Songs, Emma Kirkby/Fretwork, Harmonia Mundi France HMU 907383 [2004], CD). Given these cir- cumstances alone, volumes 1 (Cantiones sacrae (1575) [1977]), 10a-10b (The English Services, [1980-82]), 11 (The English Anthems [1983]), all edited by Craig Monson; and 17 (Consort Music [1971]), edited by Kenneth Elliott, require revised editions. Perhaps the publisher might think-indeed, might al- ready be thinking-in terms of appointing a new general editor, whose remit would include maintaining the authority and pres- tige of The Byrd Edition by commissioning these new editions now and others subse- quently when necessary, in response to in- evitable continuing developments in musicological research.

RICHARD TURBET

Aberdeen University Library

CHAMBER MUSIC BY QUANTZ

Johann Joachim Quantz. Seven Trio Sonatas. Edited by Mary Oleskie- wicz. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2001. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 111.) [Acknowledgements, p. vii; introd., p. ix-xx; 7 plates; score, 102 p.; crit. report, p. 103-15. ISBN 0-89579-481- 0. $60 (score); $38 (parts).] Johann Joachim Quantz. Six Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Basso Continuo. Edited by Mary Oleskiewicz, with a basso continuo part real- ized by David Schulenberg. Ann Arbor, MI: Steglein Publishing, Inc., c2004. [Foreword, p. vi; pref., p. vii-xii; crit. report, p. xiii-xvii; score, 86 p.; and 5 parts. ISBN 0-9719854-3-X. $60 (set).]

If Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773) had not been such a brilliant theorist, perhaps we would take him more seriously as the inventive and expert composer that he certainly was. Even his notoriously numer- ous flute concertos, most of which were written for his demanding employer Frederick the Great, evidence a constant search for variety within the permitted pa- rameters. We must not forget, however, that long before Quantz blossomed into the flutist of historical fame, he was active professionally as a competent violinist and excellent oboist. It was, indeed, his keen in- terest in music beyond the immediate needs of his own instrument that turned his famous Versuch einer Anweisung die Flbte

traversiere zu spielen (Berlin: J. F. Voss, 1752; facsim. reprint, Kassel: Bdrenreiter, 1983, etc.) into a wide-ranging treatise, where one might have expected from its title a mere primer. The same probing, ambitious quality informs his compositions.

Mary Oleskiewicz's edition for A-R Editions of seven trio sonatas by Quantz is a welcome spin-off from her doctoral thesis ("Quantz and the Flute at Dresden: His Instruments, His Repertory, and Their Significance for the Versuch and the Bach Circle" [Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1998]). As the introduction makes clear, their selection from the approximately forty such works by this composer pursues four different aims simultaneously.



Music Reviews 807

Foremost among these is the desire to show Quantz as an expert and distinctive composer, by no means dismissible as "gal- lant," if by that term (in a way, as facile as the quality that it purports to describe) is meant the sacrifice of contrapuntal ambi- tion and deep emotion. The second aim is to seize the opportunity to demonstrate im- portant points concerning performance practice by referring to comments made by Quantz himself in a manuscript treatise preserved in a copy dating from the later eighteenth century, Solfeggi pour la fli2te traversiere avec l'enseignement (modern edition by Winfried Michel and Hermien Teske [Winterthur: Amadeus, 1978]), which con- tains commentated extracts from the same sonatas (respectively, QV 2:15, QV 2:28, and QV 2:35, following the numbering of Horst Augsbach's Johann Joachim Quantz: Thematisch-systematisches Werkverzeichnis (QV) [Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 1997]). The third aim is to include a good variety of scorings. The first treble instrument is flute in all cases except that of the E-Minor Sonata (QV 2:23)-possibly an early work dating from the period when Quantz had not yet taken up the flute-which seems originally to have been for two oboes and bass, but was later arranged variously for two flutes, flute and violin, and two violins. The second treble is taken by flute, violin, oboe (in QV 2:23 only), or the right hand of the keyboard player (in QV 2:28 and QV 2:35), with many interchangeable options. The use of a cembalo obbligato playing a treble and bass (plus whatever middle strands are appropriate and practicable) parallels the well-known works for flute and harpsichord byJohann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, and suggests how this form of scoring may have first arisen as a way of performing trios with only two players.

Less expected is the fourth aim. In Augsbach's original, incomplete Quantz catalog (Johann Joachim Quantz: Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke, Werk- gruppen QV 2 und QV 3, Studien und Mate- rialien zur Musikgeschichte Dresdens, 5 [Dresden: Sdichsische Landesbibliothek, 1984]) the three sonatas QV 2:17 (E6 major), QV 2:23 (E minor), and QV 2:23 (also E minor) are accepted as genuine. However, in his later, complete catalog, Augsbach re- vises his opinion and relegates them to the Anhang reserved for spurious and doubtful

works (as QV 2:Anh.10, QV 2:Anh.14, and QV 2:Anh.16, respectively). By including all three sonatas in her anthology and retain- ing their original QV numbers (alongside Augsbach's new ones), Oleskiewicz is able to assert her belief that these three works are indeed genuine, to ensure that they remain accessible to scholars and perform- ers (for works declared spurious have an alarming habit of disappearing from view), and to argue her case-ntirely convincingly, in my opinion-for Quantz's authorship.

The introduction is as thorough and well-organized as one has come to expect from the publisher and series. We have a concise biography, a review of Quantz's trio sonatas as a whole, a discussion of sources, remarks on style, a discussion of instrumen- tation (here, Oleskiewicz argues for the primacy of the cello as the melody instrument assigned to the bass, provided that one wishes to follow Dresden practice), and an extended section on questions of performance (tempo, articulation, fingering, or- namentation, etc.) informed by the editor's specialist knowledge and experience as a professional performer on the baroque flute. Seven handsome plates illustrate the musical handwriting of Quantz and various named copyists at Dresden and elsewhere.

The scores are accurate (I spotted only a couple of minor errors, easily correctible), but their visual presentation leaves some- thing to be desired. First, Oleskiewicz (or the publisher?) has chosen to place the bass figures above the staff. There is simply too little vertical space to fit these in com- fortably; they have continually to bob up and down in order to clear the notes of the bass staff and occasionally only just avert a collision. It would have been much better to place them below the staff, where their horizontal alignment could have been made more regular. Second, groups of four eighths beginning on a strong beat appear unpredictably and disconcertingly with ei- ther one united beam or two separate beams. Under "Editorial Methods," Ole- skiewicz writes: "Beaming of small note values follows that of the principal source except where this is clearly erroneous or where a beam is interrupted by a line- break" (p. 103). Sure enough: if one com- pares the beaming in the bass part of QV 2:35 with the facsimile reproduction in plate 7, the editor's faithful adherence to



808 NOTES, March 2006

the source is confirmed. But is this not a case where, unless it can be shown that there is a musical rationale behind the vari- ation between "beamed twos" and "beamed fours," it only serves to confuse the modern user to reproduce the original without al- teration in preference to normalization?

Another contentious issue connected with beaming concerns the notation of three eighths when these occur at the end of a measure of 3 meter. Best practice keeps the first of the three notes separately flagged in order to underscore the fact that the metrical division and natural pattern of accentuation are different from those of 6

meter. Oleskiewicz, however, prefers the i-style notation. Then there are the phras- ing marks that join the first and third notes of triplet eighth notes (see especially pp. 47-50). These are presumably not legato slurs but only the equivalent of angle brackets on each side of the number. This ambiguous notation takes us right back to the "bad old days" of the nineteenth century. If the notes are detached, we need angle brackets (or nothing at all). If they are indeed to be slurred, the slur needs to go on the note-head side and the "3" on the beam side to make the independence of the two symbols clear. Finally, there is an odd case, on page 58, of rests nested within beamed eights. Unless the intention here is to adopt a "radical" twentieth-century nota- tional practice, I would suspect that this is an instance where a program default has accidentally escaped being overridden.

The critical report itself is first-rate. I particularly like the thorough discussion of repertories and copyists. Good judgment is shown in the choice between variants. As usual for A-R Editions, the original read- ings are given in non-columnar fashion: movement by movement, appearing in a single block paragraph. Such compression naturally saves space and reduces cost. But I think the price paid is too high. Per- formers are notoriously apt to skip critical reports if they encounter resistance, so user- friendliness should have a higher priority.

Not all this music reaches the highest level. Some is merely nicely turned out. But in the best movements, and especially those in which fugue or imitative counterpoint is prominent, the beneficial influence of Jan Dismas Zelenka (1679-1745), one of Quantz's many occasional teachers, is

clearly visible. One particularly attractive technical feature of Quantz's movements is his readiness to vary an opening theme, or its accompaniment, when it reappears as a reprise in the tonic toward the end.

The quartets (which, if one prefers, may also be called quadri or quatuors) represent Quantz at his very best without qualifica- tion. The composer writes with enthusiasm and evident insider knowledge about the genre in his Versuch (1752 edition, p. 302), and scholars had known for a long time that he himself had contributed to it; only no surviving examples were extant. All that changed when the collection of the Sing- Akademie zu Berlin, carried off as war booty at the end of the Second World War to lie undisturbed in Kiev for over half a century and restored to its owners only a few years ago, was examined and found to contain a set of six such quartets by Quantz.

The fascination of the genre lies partly in its flexibility. The ensemble, comprising three equal-ranking obbligato parts of con- trasting timbre and a bass, can be treated ei- ther as a "trio plus one" or as a reduced or- chestra in the manner of Antonio Vivaldi's chamber concertos. This allows the forms and styles of quartet movements to range at will between chamber (sonata, suite) and orchestral (concerto, overture) models, creating a wider spectrum of structural and stylistic possibilities than any other baroque instrumental genre enjoyed. Quantz opts for a fixed lineup of flute, violin, viola, and continuo. This combination happens not to be favored by Telemann, who in both quantitative and qualitative terms is the doyen of the baroque quartet, and offers interesting compositional possibilities. Quartets more commonly use three treble instruments or assign the third obbligato part to a bass instrument (cello, bass viol, or bassoon). Using a viola enables the composer for once to organize the contrapuntal and figurative interplay around three, rather than only two, octave registers. It also provides this instrument with opportu- nities for lyrical and virtuosic display rarely accorded to it during this period.

The trio sonatas provide little foretaste of the contrapuntal density and intensely worked thematicism of these pieces. The spirit and technique of Zelenka's music is still more apparent, even if Quantz's bouts of melancholy are less drawn out. Trade-



Music Reviews 809

mark features of the older composer, such as slowly moving triplets pitted against, or juxtaposed with, duplets and fierce rising tiratas, are borrowed with good effect. Some movements are positively Bachian in their aspirations. Take, for example, the opening Allegro of the sixth quartet (ar- guably the finest of the set), whose power- ful main theme opens with a striding rising triad (prefiguring that of the "royal" theme used in the trio sonata of Bach's Musical Offering) treated in quick-fire canonic imi- tation after the manner of the opening of the Sixth Brandenburg Concerto. The slow movement of the same quartet exhales the same world-weariness that we know from Bach's own quadro, the slow movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto. Fortu- nately, Oleskiewicz has recently recorded, with a group of colleagues including harp- sichordist David Schulenberg, the full set for Hungaroton Classic (HCD 32286 [2004], CD), creating the best possible ad- vertisement for Quantz and for her edition.

The fine Steglein edition of the quartets shares much of the approach and many of the qualities of the trios issued by A-R Editions. The placing of the figures under- neath the bass and the slightly smaller size of the staves and notes, which reduces crowding on the page, make this a more pleasant score to read, even if one misses the brilliant whiteness of the A-R pages. Unfortunately, the same problems with in- consistent beaming of groups of eighths (this time not mentioned at all in the preface) and G-style beaming in 3 meter recur, but the triplets, mercifully, use angle brackets. The critical report adopts a columnar layout, whose superiority over the A-R for- mat (admittedly, at the cost of doubling the space needed) is very apparent. Much of the preface goes over the same ground as the introduction to the trio sonatas. I miss, however, some perspective on the history and development of the quartet genre; in particular, on the relationship of the early

sonates en quatuor of Louis-Antoine Dornel (ca. 1680-after 1756) and the chamber concertos of Vivaldi to the German tradi- tion. Even a brief comparison between Quantz's and Telemann's quartets would have been welcome.

The preface refers to Schulenberg's continuo realization, supplied with the separate continuo part (but not present in the score), remarking that it "avoids doubling certain major thirds that could sound out of tune against the purer tuning of the eighteenth-century flute" (p. xi). It would have been good to spend a couple of sen- tences spelling out what the problem is, but turning to the realization, it soon becomes apparent that in the Ek-major Larghetto of the fourth quartet (in G minor), for example, the note D is avoided if it coincides with the flute's F. The resulting adjustment to the realization produces slightly bizarre results, but the point is that it is really un- necessary to take account of tuning problems with baroque instruments in an added part that is manifestly intended not for specialist professionals, for whom it will be a point of honor not to use a ready-made written realization, but for amateurs or less experienced professionals using modern instruments. The realizations themselves are rather disappointing: they lack melodic contour in the upper part and do not rein- force the rhythm of the bass sufficiently.

But all this is minor. Oleskiewicz and her two publishers are to be congratulated for having taken initiatives on Quantz's behalf that deserve to result in a major revaluation of his music. Certainly, I can see the quartets soon rivaling their counterparts in Telemann's Musique de table for popularity, and viola players tugging at their colleagues' sleeves for a chance to prove their mettle.

MICHAEL TALBOT

University of Liverpool



seven trio sonatasby johann joachim quantz; mary oleskiewicz;siz quartets for flute, violin, viola,...

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