two sonatas and the quartet <strong>da</strong>ting from any later (by 1783). 86 In comparison, all of the other composers under discussion here wrote for the instrument during its years of decline on a far more limited scale in terms of quantity— but certainly not of quality—of output, with only Lidl and Hammer even getting into double figures (ignoring Truska's and Pfchl's substantial amounts of lost gamba music). These composers nevertheless produced between them a collection of idiomatic music for the viola <strong>da</strong> gamba that has been overlooked—or simply ignored-for far too long, especially by practitioners of the instrument, one that took the bass viol into the realm of the mature classical era and a musical style that has hitherto been regarded as anachronistic by gamba players used to 'switching off' after the music of Abel. 87 It must not be forgotten, either, that it is no longer merely the 'great works' towering above the rest of music's copious output that belong to history in the strict sense of the word. This status also accrues to the vast amounts of 'trivial music' that in fact go to make up the bulk of <strong>da</strong>y-to-<strong>da</strong>y musical reality, and should not therefore be summarily dismissed as the rubble that remains after the edifice of history has been erected. 88 Of course the viola <strong>da</strong> gamba did not have the dynamic capability to cope with the expanded orchestra of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and in consequence could not be used as either a concerto soloist or an orchestral instrument. By careful genre selection, however, it did prove possible to compose chamber music for the gamba in a variety of up<strong>da</strong>ted instrumental combinations using current musical styles and formal procedures, rather than continuing [54] to 'mothball' it in stylistic imitation of past glories of the repertoire such as the works of C. F. Abel. The composers involved were also able to continue to write idiomatically for it, even reviving older virtuoso techniques in the soloistic figurations they employed. Anew, if admittedly comparatively limited, 'golden age' of music for the viola <strong>da</strong> gamba was the result, albeit with a strongly Germanic emphasis shared with much other music of the classical era, and it is now surely high time for the practical revival of this late-eighteenth-century repertory. * 86 W. Knape, M. Charters and S. McVeigh, 'Abel, Carl Friedrich', Grove, I, 17, up<strong>da</strong>ting Knape, Bibliographisch-the4Batisches Verzeichnis. The 42 known gamba sonatas have recently been supplemented by an additional unaccompanied three-movement one in C major that has been rediscovered by Dr Peter Holman. The current <strong>da</strong>ting of post-1783 assigned to this quartet and at least one of the two sonatas (if correctly identified) is now challenged by its being listed in Cramer's 1783 edition (see note 67 above). 87 Despite the publication of the sonatas by Lidl as long ago as 1996, for example, there appears to be a commercial recording of only one of these works: 'Musica de estilo galante' (ARSIS 4176), with Pere Ros (viola <strong>da</strong> gamba) and Jusep Borras (bassoon), includes one sonata each by Hammer and Lidl. No recording exists of his trios, not to mention the substantial quantity of gamba music by various composers that involves the horn. It is to be hoped that the recording of the complete Hammer sonatas (see note 36 above), favourably reviewed by Alison Crum in VdGS Newsletter 113 (April 2001), 17-18, reflects a growing recognition of the classical viol repertory. 88 C. Dahlhaus, trans. J. Robinson, Foun<strong>da</strong>tions of Music History (Cambridge, 1983), 8. I am grateful to Dr Barra Boydell for bringing this apt quotation to my attention.
The author (drhodes@wit.ie) has prepared critical editions of many of the works discussed above, and articles about some of their composers are planned for future issues of Chelys. Any further information regarding other late-eighteenthor early-nineteenth-century viola <strong>da</strong> gamba music or practitioners of the instrument would be most welcome.
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The Journal of the Viola da Gamba S
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WHO WAS RICHARD GIBBON(S)? Pamela W
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