Avison: Concertos in Seven Parts / Cafe Zimmermann

Avison: Concertos in Seven Parts / Cafe Zimmermann

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
Charles Avison (1709-1770) and Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) present a wide contrast in that Scarlatti's music is still played and Avison's is not. Ralph Kirkpatrick, the harpsichordist and scholar who wrote the definitive biography of Scarlatti, felt that Avison was "an excellent composer who is unjustly forgotten." He goes on to say quite aptly, "He [Avison] has been recalled largely in literary circles as the subject of one of Browning's most flatulent musical poems." Kirkpatrick also reminds us of Laurence Sterne's reference to Avison in Tristram Shandy. Sterne writes of Tristram's father, seemingly in a rage, ". . . and the devil and all had broke loose, the whole piece, Madam, must have been played off like the sixth of Avison Scarlatti--con furia, like mad . . ." The composer who so caught the attention of Browning and Sterne undoubtedly created his arrangements of Scarlatti sonatas for strings because of the widespread popularity of Domenico's music in England in the early 18th century. Charles Burney, writer of one of the first histories of music in English, tells us: ". . . Scarlatti's were not only the pieces with which every young performer displayed his powers of execution, but were the wonder and delight of every hearer who had a spark of enthusiasm about him, and could feel new and bold effects intrepidly produced by the breach of almost all the old and established rules of composition." To accommodate this enthusiasm, numerous collections of Scarlatti's keyboard music were published in England, including, in 1744, the transcriptions that are the basis of this recording. Avison and the small group of Englishmen who were active in promoting Scarlatti's music have been described, somewhat oddly, as an English Scarlatti cult. Burney himself used the term "Scarlatti sect" in his history. The so-called cult was not a formal organization. A student-teacher relationship existed between some of the principals, but mainly they shared a liking for Scarlatti's music evidenced in their work. The founder of the Scarlatti cult was Thomas Roseingrave (1690-1766).4 As a young man Roseingrave studied music in Italy, where he knew and admired Domenico and spent a good deal of time with him. On his return to England Roseingrave became active in the performance of Scarlatti's music in London. Scarlatti may have visited there for some of this activity, but this has not been established as fact. In 1725 Roseingrave became the organist at the fashionable St. George's Church, Hanover Square, which Handel attended. In 1739, he published 42 harpsichord lessons, as the sonatas were called, by Scarlatti. This two-volume edition was in competition with a 1738 collection of Scarlatti called Essercizi per Gravicembalo, the source of which is unknown, although Scarlatti himself may have been involved in the publication. One unusual feature of the 1739 Roseingrave edition was the list of subscribers. They were professional musicians for the most part, rather than the aristocratic group usually encountered on such a list. Included were Charles Avison, Thomas Arne, William Boyce, Maurice Greene, John Stanley, the Italian Francesco Geminiani, and Joseph Mahoon. (Mahoon was "Harpsichord Maker to His Majesty, and his name can be read on the harpsichord drawn by Hogarth in the second plate of "The Rake's Progress," which dates from 1735.) As with Alpha Productions, the recording is masterfully done, beautifully packaged, and contains extensive liner notes in booklet form in both French and English.

Avison: Concertos in Seven Parts / Cafe Zimmermann, Music, Charles Avison

Avison: Concertos in Seven Parts / Cafe Zimmermann

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