download.pdf - 1.2Mb - Viola da Gamba Society

together here. Some of their individual contributions to the genre remain to
be investigated, whilst others have proved to be relatively minor, if not
negligible. These include Franz Benda (1709-86), Johann Georg Lang (1724-
98), Franz Christoph Neubauer (1760-95), Karl (Carlo) Michael, Ritter von
Esser (1737-c1795), Tomaso Carle (n.d.) and William Jackson (1730-1803).
The violinist and composer Franz Benda's three-movement Sonata in F
for viola da gamba and basso continuo is an undated arrangement of an
earlier fourmovement violin sonata that omits the original slow movement:
employed by the future King Friedrich II 'The Great' of Prussia in 1733,
Benda remained in Potsdam near Berlin until his death, and it is therefore
quite likely that either he or someone within his circle (the original source is
not autograph) expressly prepared this sonata for the future King Friedrich
Wilhelm II, possibly during the 1770s or early 1780s. 43 The three movements,
each consisting of two repeated sections of music, are a 57-bar Moderato, a
Polonese - ma un poco lento of only 16 bars, and a more substantial Un poco
presto with 124 bars in 2/4 time, and would not have taxed a dilettante
aristocratic performer, involving no double-stopped figurations (except for
one five-bar passage in the finale that features a low pedal G) or bariolage.
Of perhaps slightly later composition, a three-movement Sonata in C for
gamba ('Gambetta') and basso by the violinist and keyboard player J. G. Lang
has been dated to c1780: it may have been composed for Pietro Pompeo
Sales (1729-97), a virtuoso gamba player and Kapellmeister to the elector of
Trier at Schloss Ehrenbreitstein near Koblenz, where Lang was employed as
Konzertmeister, or for one of the aristocrats who played the instrument at
that court, including the elector himself (and prince-bishop of Augsburg),
Clemens Wenzeslaus von Sachsen (1739-1812). 44 Unfortunately, as with the
Ritter trio, this sonata cannot be played on a normal gamba: Susanne
Heinrich, to whom grateful thanks are also due, thinks it may have been
written for an instrument in G. Three works by the Bohemian violinist F. C.
Neubauer are dated 1781: a four-movement divertimento in G (including
minuet and trio) for harpsichord (or possibly fortepiano) and gamba, a threemovement
quartet in Bb and a fivemovement nocturne (in the divertimento
tradition) in G, both for two violins, gamba and cello, in which the gamba
replaces the viola of the normal string quartet, although in a more soloistic
manner. 45 As for the virtuoso violinist and [44] viola d'amore player Esser and
43 Heinrichshofen s Verlag (Wilhelmshaven) published Benda's sonata in F in 1971 in an
edition prepared from the original source (at D-Bsb) by Hannelore M0ller. The original
collection of manuscript gamba music in Berlin (once belonging to Friedrich Wilhelm II?)
from which it was taken is itemised in Flassig, Die solistische Gambenmusik, 309. Flassig
discusses the sonata on pp. 167-9 and cites an earlier RISM dating of it to 'before 1764',
referring to the original violin sonata, not the later arrangement for gamba. D. Lee, Franz
Benda (1709-1786) - A Thematic Catalogue of his Works (New York, 1984), 55, describes the
arrangement of the Violin Sonata in F, III-71, as an 'adaptation and confirms the pre-1764
date.
44 See Flassig, Die solistische Gambenmusik, 210-13, 278.
45 These works remain to be investigated. They may possibly have been composed either
for P P Sales or for the elector of Trier (see above): see Flassig, Die solistische Gambenmusik,
214-6, 286. The Furstlich Waldburg-Zeil'sches Gesamtarchiv, where the manuscripts of the
Lang and Neubauer gamba works are held, is unable to provide copies in any form, so it is
unlikely that performers will have access to modern editions in the foreseeable future.