The six sonatas for cello and basso continuo in this volume all belong to the ?Fondo Correr? collection held in the library of the conservatory of music ?Benedetto Marcello? in Venice. This valuable collection consists of about thirty printed editions and some 1600 original manuscripts from various sources. The majority of these works is composed by Venetian musicians among them Bonaventura Furlanetto one of the last masters at the Ospedale della Pietà Gaetano Latilla Andrea Bernasconi Giovanni Porta Giuseppe Sarti and Antonio Martinelli. The latter (Antonio Martinelli) was one of the best known music teachers at the Ospedali Grandi in Venice. The three sonatas edited in this volume are his only compositions for cello accompanied by basso continuo that survive today. First edition.

Par VIVALDI ANTONIO. Throughout his life, Antonio Vivaldi wrote almost thirty instrumental works that use the cello as a solo instrument. Vivaldi knew how to tailor his music to the cello and in doing so, helped to establish this still young instrument in the music of that time. The Concerto RV 531 is the only double concerto in Vivaldi?s ?uvre for two solo violoncellos. The two solo parts take centre stage with virtuosic passages but lie on the instrument so well that they can be comfortably mastered by advanced students. The edition is based on the careful evaluation of Vivaldi?s autograph score which is the main source and several inconsistencies found in previous editions have been clarified. At the same time the edition allows for a flexible realisation of this concerto: it can be performed by a full tutti orchestra or by one performer per part. The cello part in the basso continuo group can be played by orchestral cellists or by the soloists./ Répertoire / 2 Violoncelles, Cordes et Basse Continue

Italian-born composer Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) composed a diversity of music from church music and oratorios to solo cantatas duets and sonatas. Benedetto was a younger contemporary of Antonio Vivaldi and his music can be easily recognised as having a ‘Vivaldian flavour’.Available here is one his first compositions for solo Cello and Continuo the Sonata in F Op.2 No.1 realised here with a Piano accompaniment. This edition has been edited by Walter Schulz and Eberhard Wenzel.

The nine sonatas for Cello and Basso Continuo by Antonio Vivaldi are among the most famous Cello works of the Baroque era. Thanks to their moderate technical demands the pieces are an integral part of music lessons as well as of private music-making. But even for the professional early music scene they form a focus of the Cello repertoire. The new edition of the Wiener Urtext Edition serves the needs and demands of all three target groups alike providing a reliable musical text which is no longer based on the unauthorized first Paris edition by Le Clerc & Boivin but on a copy from Naples revised by Vivaldi himself as well as on two othermanuscripts associated with the composer from the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the music library of the Counts of Schönborn at Wiesentheid. Apart from the solo part the edition comprises a Piano (Harpsichord) score with realized Basso Continuo which should be very welcome to pupils and amateurs. An unrealized Basso Continuo part has been added for the professional Continuo player in which the figures of the first Paris edition has been included. Even if they do not trace back to Vivaldi himself they bear witness to the contemporary Basso Continuo practice and can serve as a guide for the execution of Vivaldi's unfigured Bass part. More detailed information on the performance practice is provided in the notes on interpretation by Gerhart Darmstadt which are based on contemporary sources.

These three pieces for cello and piano are meditations – personal secular and musical – on images from religious poetry. The title of No. 1 Angels bending near the earth comes from a carol which begins‘It came upon the midnight clear’ by the Massachusetts pastor and poet Edmund Sears. The full reference is to “angels bending near the earth/to touch their harps of gold” and this is the inspiration forthe music with piano arpeggios swooping down over the rich central band of sound produced by the cello. No. 2’s title In death’s dark vale is a brief paraphrase (from a Scottish hymnal) of Psalm 23; thefull quotation is “yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil”. The image here is of human life lived against the prospect of impending death. The cello plays a hasty self-absorbed continuo whilst around it piano motifs and chords of different height and depth create an evolving backdrop. No. 3 O sapientia is the only movement which quotes a musical original; Hildegard ofBingen’s hymn O virtus sapientiae –“O strength of wisdom”. This is a calm elegaic set of variations for the cello on Hildegard’s melody accompanied by mostly bright optimistic refl ections from thepiano. Commissioned by cellist Jonathan Miller of Boston MA. First performance on 23 September 2016 at Hamilton Hall Salem MA by Jonathan Miller (cello) and Randall Hodgkinson (piano)

for Violoncello and Basso continuo or two Violoncellos-Two Sonatas For Violoncello And Basso Continuo or 2 Violoncelli Nos.5 and 9 from '12 Cello Sonatas' Op.2. Giacomo Basevi Cervetto (ca.1690-1783) born probably in Verona Italy who - following his move to England in around 1738 - became an important classical cellist and composer of Baroque music for Cello. He was a successful dealer in Italian musical instruments and became a member of the Drury Lane theatre Orchestra.

It was a chance visit to a second hand bookshop in Nottingham that set me on the trail of Rossini's now well-known Duetto for cello and double bass. But the story begins earlier than that. In the 1960s I was studying the double bass at the Royal College of Music with Adrian Beers who was at that time principal of the English Chamber Orchestra on the front desk of the Philharmonia Orchestra and a member of the Melos Ensemble of London (then one of the leading ensembles of the world). I was working on the 'Dragonetti Concerto' as most young players do and I wanted to find out a bit about it. My teacher said he thought the autograph manuscript might be in the British Library which was all the encouragement I needed to secure a pass to the Reading Room so I could go and see for myself. There sure enough I found a large collection of Dragonetti's autograph manuscripts together with other bound volumes relating to his life. The papers had been lovingly collated and annotated by Vincent Novello one of Dragonetti's closest friends then deposited in the library before his departure to Italy in 1848 two years after Dragonetti's death. One of the volumes included a lot of letters about various engagements and music festivals copies of orders for strings Dragonetti wanted from Italy details about paintings he wanted to buy and numerous invitations to private functions. The manuscript of the 'Dragonetti Concerto' of course wasn't among the papers we now know it to have been written by Edouard Nanny a century or so later. One name that came up regularly in the documents was that of Sir George Smart. Smart had been a violinist in Salomon's orchestra and had played for Haydn at his London concerts in the 1790s. As a child he had learnt much about music from his father who had in turn been present at many of Handel's rehearsals when he was preparing some of his major works for the first time. Smart was also a fine keyboard player becoming organist of the Chapel Royal in 1822. As a conductor

If Bach Was A Cellist-The purpose of the series if Bach was a cellist is to live the fantasy that everything Bach wrote he wrote for the cello.The concerto in D minor (BWV 1043) for two violins string orchestra and continuo by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is one of his most loved works. Indeed the slow movement may be one of the most popular and loved pieces in the instrumental literature. Traditionally it is believed to have been written in Köthen where he held the position of 'fürstlischer Kapellmeister' from 1717-1723 a town that saw the birth of the Brandenburg concertos and the solo works for violin and cello. The Dorian church mode (the absent Bflat in the key of Dminor) would also speak for the younger Bach. Recent research however has shown that the orchestral parts carefully written out by Bach himself and found among the papers of his son Carl Philip Emanuel date from around 1730. The sophistication of the composition also speaks for a later date than Köthen. The original score has been lost.Always in need of concert material for his 'Collegium Musicus' in Leipzig Bach made a version of the present concerto for two harpsichords (BWV 1062). The original key was transposed to C minor so that the top note would not exceed a D but remain within the range of a standard harpsichord. Another C minor concerto (BWV 1060) for two harpsi-chords often heard in an arrangement from the 1920's for violin and oboe by Max Schneider and Max Seiffert speaks for two concertos in D minor for two violins by Bach.When arranging an orchestral score for the pianoforte one has to remember that a double-bass sounds an octave lower than notated. This is a welcomed fact when dealing with two instruments that play the original solo parts an octave down. At the same time for a transcription of this kind the ambition must be to avoid the cello soloists playing in octaves with the violin tutti parts - which is what would happen were they to share the same material. This ambition made a piano reduction

Instrumentation : cello and basso continuo Date of Publications : 05/04/2000 Number of Pages : 20 Arranger : Darmstadt, Gerhart Series : Cello Library

for Violoncello and Basso continuo-Telemann Sonata In D for Cello and Basso Continuo. ABRSM Grade 8 Syllabus title. Edition no.: HM 13

per violoncello e basso continuo-Similar to Vivaldi's concertos and compositions for violin his 9 cello sonatas also bear the mark of a genius of exuberant temperament. Since they belong to the basic repertory of the cello it increases the importance of the edition that the music includes the partly deviating performing marks of the surviving authentic sources of the pieces for the first time.

The sonatas published in 1732 in Amsterdam, London and Paris under Benedetto Marcello?s name are to the present day firmly established in the cello repertoire. Although Marcello?s authorship is not undisputed ? by this time, the composer had already specialised in sacred works ? the musical beauty of the sonatas is all the more captivating. This four-movement F major Sonata offers all cellists well-versed in the first four positions a good introduction to the classical literature and to reading tenor clef. In this Urtext edition, the figured continuo part is additionally furnished with an easy-to-play keyboard realisation by Wolfgang Kostujak. The enclosed solo part provides fingerings and bowing marks for the cellist ? and thus the optimal provisions for a class recital!

First modern edition, by Sarah Freiberg, of these sonatas, 1765; keyboard part fully realized by Byron Schenkman; includes separate continuo part for a second cello or bassoon. Recorded on Centaur CRC 2534.