JAVS Spring 2024

After the analysis of these three arrangements, and with the completion of a new violin edition and based on it, a complete edition of the sonatas for viola and continuo was created. For this purpose, each of the sonatas underwent the procedure that will be described: 1. In order to preserve Biber’s original scordaturas model, it was decided that the best way was to transpose every sonata a perfect fifth below to keep the original scordatura patterns. This decision came after trying different options including the arrangement of the sonatas in the original violin key signatures and the performance of the sonatas on a five-string instrument. 2. Find the right key signature for the viola. This means, to create a key signature that symbolizes the same tablature pattern as in the violin, by creating a map of the “accidentals” in the violin fingerboard and translate those “accidentals” into the viola part. Based on this procedure the new key signatures for the viola were created. 3. Write the key signature for the transliterated viola and the basso continuo. This by transposing the original tonality a fifth lower. 4. All the notes from the violin part were transcribed into the viola by a diatonically descending perfect fifth. 5. Include only the accidentals from the original manuscript. Additional accidentals will be shown above the notes according to the following criteria:

a. Accidentals missing in the manuscript, probably due to a copyist mistake are shown as upper accidentals with parenthesis. b. Courtesy accidentals will be shown as upper accidentals without parenthesis. 6. Make sure that all measure numbers, stem directions, and additional indication from the violin part will be reproduced in the new viola part. Proceed to practice and perform each one of the sonatas in the viola, checking for human mistakes in the score writing. This to read the score as the editor while learning and “hearing the score” as a performer to find places where the music could be presented more clearly. 7. Revise all the continuo figures to work in the new key signatures. This, in addition to the fact of playing the works, also allowed this author to understand better the different musical roles of the continuo as well as its relationship with the solo part. Figure 4, presents an excerpt of Sonata XI in which the continuo presents the main theme of the Surrexit Christus hodie , which is then joined by viola, followed by a sequence of variated repetitions in which the keyboard and the viola finds themselves able to improvise in virtuosic ways over this theme. This procedure resulted in this first complete viola edition. As a sample of this work, the following Tables 2 and 3 comprise the opening measures from the viola score of each of the sonatas, illustrating the resulting scordaturas and accidentals.

Figure 4.

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Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring 2024