Rich, often stolen sonatas
Elinor Frey has published the cello sonatas by Giuseppe Dall'Abaco (1710-1805) for the first time. Three of the five volumes are currently available.
Edition Wallhall has set an editorial milestone with the critical edition of all 27 cello concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. Now the publisher surprises with the complete edition of the 35 surviving cello sonatas by Giuseppe Clemente Dall'Abaco. The edition was prepared by the Canadian cellist Elinor Frey, a specialist in 17th and 18th century music.
The cellist Dall'Abaco was born in Brussels in 1710, the same year as Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and died in 1805, the year Luigi Boccherini died, at the very old age of 95 in Arbizzano di Valpolicella in the province of Verona. Dall'Abaco stayed in London from 1736-37. This explains why the extensive collection is kept in the British Library.
The baroque-style sonatas are characterized by cantabile melodies, some of which have a folk-like character. The technical palette is rich: vocal passages up to c3, double stops (with frequent 4-3 stops using the thumb), virtuoso arpeggio sequences and batteries. At times, the composer experiments with the emerging galant style of the time.
The extensive foreword provides information about Dall'Abaco's life, his fields of activity and his cultural environment. It also provides information about numerous contemporary borrowings from his works. The French cellist Martin Berteau (1708-1771), for example, used four borrowed movements from Dall'Abaco's sonatas in his much-played six cello sonatas op. 1. And the G major sonata attributed to Giovanni Battista Sammartini - probably due to an error by the British editor A. Moffat - was originally penned by Dall'Abaco.
One small drawback: the edition does not contain a suspended continuo part. This may make it more difficult for amateur musicians in particular to use this rich and pedagogically valuable collection. If you would like to familiarize yourself with the sonatas, we also recommend the CD released on the Passacaille Records label with the editor Elinor Frey as soloist (PAS 1069).
Giuseppe Clemente Dall'Abaco: 35 sonatas for violoncello and b.c., first edition in 5 volumes by Elinor Frey;
published so far:
Vol. III: 8 Sonatas (ABV 24-31), EW 1154, € 29.80;
Vol. IV: 8 Sonatas (ABV 32-39), EW 1160, € 29.80;
Vol. V: 7 Sonatas (ABV 40-46), EW 1164, € 26.50;
Edition Walhall, Magdeburg
