JAVS Fall 1989

37

mastering "Tune a Day, Book II" to the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite in D (the "Air for the G-String"). The Air presents some real challenges, both rhythmic and interpretive, and this edition calls for the use of positions one through four; but most of the other selections should be accessible to the person who has studied privately for a year and a half or so. They are tuneful, carefully edited, and fun to play-­ musically rewarding. Three of the pieces are extracted from vocal music in the Peasant Cantata. There is the Air and the Bouree from the C-Major Cello Suite. The remaining five are taken from the Anna Magdalena Bach Book. Perhaps it would be appropriate to mention somewhere in a footnote that the authorship of the Anna Magdalena pieces is in double. J.S., after all, did not use the gallant style, and most editors these days refer to these pieces as "anonymous." But that is probably quibbling when such fine music is made available to students in such an agreeable and carefully thought out edition. At an advertised cost of $6.60, the price is also right. Three Airs Varies for Solo Viola. By Jean Baptiste Cartier. Newly edited by Wolfgang Sawodny. Verlag Walter Wollen-weber/Foreign Mus. Dist., 1986. $14.40 These three compositions for solo viola by Jean Baptiste Cartier (1765 1841) are musically very interesting although technically difficult, both because of the double stopping and the extreme range of the fingerboard covered. They are essentially virtuoso violin material translated directly to the viola. Professor Dr. W. Sawodny retains the original bowings in this edition "as a document of the then prevailing taste," as he states in his informative postscript (printed in both German and English), but he omits the original fingerings because they "depend too much on the violin technique of his (Cartier's) time." --Thomas G. Hall Chapman College

This omission is disturbing on two grounds: first, if the bowings are of historical interest, so are the fingerings. Presumably they are from 1809, when the first edition of these works was published by Sieber in Paris; it is always illuminiating to know how a composition might have been performed originally. Secondly, the difficulty of the passagework is such that new, editorially added fingerings would be an enhancing feature. It might be argued that since only advanced players are going to attempt this material, they might prefer to create their own fingerings, but I personally am always interested in the suggestions of my colleagues. We thank the Internationale Viola-Forschung Gesellschaft, Salzburg, for their cooperation in this issue. Pamela Goldsmith. (Courtesy American String Teacher) Recordings ELGAR/TERTIS: VIOLA CONCERTO IN E MINOR, OP.85; BAX: PHANTASY FOR VIOLA AND ORCHESTRA; ELGAR: THREE CHARACTERISTIC PIECES, OP.l0 Rivka Golani (viola)/RPO/ Vernon Handley Conifer CFC 171, TAPE MCFC 1 71, CD CDCF 171 For years I have been trying to persuade record companies to record the Bax Phantasy and Lionel Tertis's viola version of the Elgar Cello Concerto-­ and/ now here they are, from a totally unexpected source. Rivka Golani's success in recording Martinu's Rhapsody Concerto led Conifer to ask her to do the Elgar, and she studied the work carefully before accepting. She now feels that the viola version is a valid work on its own--and having heard her performance, I agree. Tertis won Elgar's approval for the transcription by tuning his C-string down to B-flat and playing

o