Seven Trio Sonatas, and: Six Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Basso Continuo (review)

If Johann Joachim Quantz (1697–1773) had not been such a brilliant theorist, perhaps we would take him more seriously as the inventive and expert composer that he certainly was. Even his notoriously numerous flute concertos, most of which were written for his demanding employer Frederick the Great, evidence a constant search for variety within the permitted parameters. We must not forget, however, that long before Quantz blossomed into the flutist of historical fame, he was active professionally as a competent violinist and excellent oboist. It was, indeed, his keen interest in music beyond the immediate needs of his own instrument that turned his famous Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen (Berlin: J. F. Voss, 1752; facsim. reprint, Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1983, etc.) into a wide-ranging treatise, where one might have expected from its title a mere primer. The same probing, ambitious quality informs his compositions.

Mary Oleskiewicz's edition for A-R Editions of seven trio sonatas by Quantz is a welcome spin-off from her doctoral thesis ("Quantz and the Flute at Dresden: His Instruments, His Repertory, and Their Significance for the Versuch and the Bach Circle" [Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1998]). As the introduction makes clear, their selection from the approximately forty such works by this composer pursues four different aims simultaneously. Foremost among these is the desire to show Quantz as an expert and distinctive composer, by no means dismissible as "gallant," if by that term (in a way, as facile as the quality that it purports to describe) is meant the sacrifice of contrapuntal ambition and deep emotion. The second aim is to seize the opportunity to demonstrate important points concerning performance practice by referring to comments made by Quantz himself in a manuscript treatise preserved in a copy dating from the later eighteenth century, Solfeggi pour la flûte traversière avec l'enseignement (modern edition by Winfried Michel and Hermien Teske [Winterthur: Amadeus, 1978]), which contains commentated extracts from the same sonatas (respectively, QV 2:15, QV 2:28, and QV 2:35, following the numbering of Horst Augsbach's Johann Joachim Quantz: Thematisch-systematisches Werkverzeichnis (QV) [Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 1997]). The third aim is to include a good variety of scorings. The first treble instrument is flute in all cases except that of the E-Minor Sonata (QV 2:23)—possibly an early work dating from the period when Quantz had not yet taken up the flute—which seems originally to have been for two oboes and bass, but was later arranged variously for two flutes, flute and violin, and two violins. The second treble is taken by flute, violin, oboe (in QV 2:23 only), or the right hand of the keyboard player (in QV 2:28 and QV 2:35), with many interchangeable options. The use of a cembalo obbligato playing a treble and bass (plus whatever middle strands are appropriate and practicable) parallels the well-known works for flute and harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Philipp Telemann, and suggests how this form of scoring may have first arisen as a way of performing trios with only two players.

Less expected is the fourth aim. In Augsbach's original, incomplete Quantz catalog ( Johann Joachim Quantz: Thematisches Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke, Werkgruppen QV 2 und QV 3, Studien und Materialien zur...