JAVS Fall 1990

39

best side of our instrument, and without having to compete overly with orchestral forces. The pattern is that the soloist will lead the way to loud or climactic areas, but when the most noise is made, the orchestra is on its own and the viola is taking a breather. All in all, this is a splendid addition to the repertory. One can only hope that it will not languish in 0 bscurity, since it is so attractive, and practical.

squirreliness. The viola-part bears a publisher's number different than the guitar-part, which leads to the suspicion that the viola part appeared earlier, with a piano companion. The guitar part, or the wedding of the two, is a real problem, There is no score, or document showing how these two instrumental parts should sound together. Further, there are no measure numbers or rehearsal letters, and the guitar part makes frequent use of repeat signs not found in the viola part. On top of that, the guitar-part dynamics are unreliably placed or in some cases missing. Even some of Schubert's "a tempos" are omitted. Without adding rehearsal letters or measure numbers, rehearsal would be impossible. Finding a common spot in the middle of the last movement was cause for considerable merriment. Checking a harmony involved a big-time search, and a lot of uncertainty. chord factor redistribution, octave transposition, and bass doubling omission. The chord texture is fairly thick for the guitar, the tessitura is high, and left-hand fingerings are sparse. It demands a mature guitar technique to cover the notes. The principal problem for the violist is balance. The Sonata works beautifully well for piano and viola, but with guitar the dynamic range is so subtle that the violist is really on his own, and the guitar probably would sound like a distant murmur in an auditorium of any size. Despite the shortcomings, this edition of the Arpeggione Sonata does enrich the guitar repertory, and perhaps violists with a lot of patience and restraints could make it work. The edition is available from Foreign Music Distributors, 13 Elkay Drive, Chester, N.Y., 10918. Telephone 914-469-5790. At $13.45, second thoughts are in order. Thanks are extended to Jeffery Cogan, Professor of Guitar at Chapman College, for assistance with this review. The guitar transcription is fairly straightforward, and consists mainly of

The Doblinger publishing house has given violists some fine editions of rare works, e.g. the three Flackton Sonatas, the Vanhal Concerto, various odd ensemble pieces ...definitely not high-profit items. Doblinger has a sizeable catalog of serious guitar music also. (We know the company's heart's in the right place.) However, this present edition of the sublime Arpeggione Sonata has some serious problems. arpeggione was an instrument not unlike the guitar. It was tuned to guitar-string pitches, and it was shaped like a guitar and had frets. Held between the legs and played with a bow, it probably had a small sound like a viola da gamba, essentially guitar-like. Then why take the original, beautiful and idiomatic piano-part and play it on the guitar? It would make much more/sense to play the arpeggione part on the guitar. At any rate, this paraphrase assigns the arpeggione part to the viola, in the standard way. It's a fine viola edition, uncluttered with editorial opinion for the most part. It follows the Breitkopf & Hartel Critical Edition with faithfulness occasionally showing a fingering solutio~, but using the original phrasing and dynamics, generally avoiding editorial Fundamental is the Question of appropriateness. Granted that the

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