JAVS Winter 1991

anti, Michigan 48197. Phone: (313) 482..6288. (See advertisement in this issue.) Dr. Riley is a past president of the AVS and has labored long and tenaciously to bring this illuminating volume to print. Volume II of The History of the Viola is a supplement to the original History of the Viola, published in 1980. At that time there was no plan to publish a Volume II, and therefore the first publication was not listed as Volume I. The first edition, 1980, is now out of print. The demand for this book and the accumulation of new material related to viola history dictates the publication of the present edition, entitled Volume II, and the eventual reprinting of the original book in a revised form as Volume I. The 1980 edition included violas from the shops of such masters as the members of the Amati family, Gasparo da Sa16, Paolo Maggini, Andrea Guarneri, Antonio Stradivarius, J.B. Guadagnini, and others; as well as information about 19th and 20th century craftsmen who attempted to "improve" the instrument. Volume II contains photographs and descriptions of 65 important violas that did not appear in the 1980 edition. When the 1980 edition was published, there was a limited amount of information available to the author. Ince the book was published, however, museums, dealers, and individual owners of violas volunteered information and photographs in such quantity that it soon became evident that there had to be a Volume II in order to better deal with the instruments and other aspects of The Historu of the Viola. More information and biographies were volunteered regarding Violists in Argentina, Czechoslovakia, France, Italy, the Orient, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere. Scholarly research also has uncovered important information related to the music written for the viola, and the violists who performed this music. There has been also much accelerated activity of the organizations promoting the viola. The decade between the publication of Volume I in 1980, and the writing of Volume II, in 1990, has been one of the most eventful and productive periods in the history of the Viola. It has been a period that is chronicled in the present edition. Many deserving violists had been unintentionally omitted from the biographies in the "Appendix" of the 1990 edition. There has been an EXHAUSTIVE ATTEMPT to rectify these omissions in the present edition. Volume II contains brief biographies of more than 300 violists who were not included in the 1980 edition, and with those in the 1980 edition having been brought

technical display (but not impossibly deman.. ding), but of no great depth or importance. Probably this edition is intended for technical study, and the fact that it is fun, pretty and satisfying to play will only make such study more attractive.

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The New Grove Dictionary (Macmillan, 1980) says of Bernhard Romberg's (1767 .. 1841) numerous cello compositions, "... they have no enduring musical value, but for a long time proved good practice materia1.." Perhaps, even that evaluation is generous, if applied to this Milton Katims transcription of Romberg's D Major Concerto No.2 for Cello and Orchestra. The edition itself is not without virtue, what with Katims' fingerings and bowings, good paper quality, page.. turns handled well, measure numbers present, sensible dynamics, and the like. But the music itself is as vacant,repetitious, lacking in style, imagination, and harmonic or rhythmic interest, as will be found in published form. This is not a quarrel with a certain esthetic orientation; this music is dull, from any standpoint. The Concerto is at the technical level of a good high.. school student, but it would take an artist of the highest calibre to sustain musical interest in its considerable length. It does present some problems of range (high notes), and metrical placement of ornamental figures, so it might be useful as a teaching piece in those areas. Probably it's just a problem with the review copy, but the print quality of the piano score is not what it should be. Perhaps this is something to watch for when buying International editions.

-Thomas HaU

Chapman University

Riley Vol. II The long..awaited Vo1. II of History of the Viola by Maurice W. Riley is now in print. It is a supplement to Vol. I of the same book which appeared in 1980 and is available from Dr. Maurice W. Riley, 512 Roosevelt Blvd., Ypsil ..