Concertos pour violon et orchestre op. VII édition by Louis Castelain (review)

In the early 1960s, when I first studied and performed the music of Jean-Marie Leclair l’aîné (1697–1764), a number of his works weren’t available at all, and many of the modern editions that did exist were of an old-fashioned type, with continuo realizations intended for the piano, and lots of slurs, dynamics, accents, bowings, fingerings, etc., added. Whatever the historical value or musical merits of such editions, they posed a problem for someone like me, who was interested in matters of eighteenth-century performance practice. Most of the recordings available then—and there were not many—were unimpressive technically and stylistically. How times have changed! Now we have access to first-rate editions and recordings of most of his output, and even published facsimiles of the original editions of much of his oeuvre. (His opera Scylla et Glaucusaside, there is no manuscript tradition, presumably because Leclair’s autograph manuscripts were consumed during the process by which his wife engraved his works; the manuscripts that do exist prove to have been copied from the printed editions.)

Leclair composed a dozen concertos, published in two sets of six as his opus 7 (1737) and opus 10 (1745). With the exception of op. 7, no. 3, whose solo part bears the legend “violon, flûte allemande ou hautbois,” the concertos are orchestrated for solo violin, strings, and continuo. They were well known in the mid-eighteenth century, especially in France where, as Jean-Benjamin de La Borde wrote in 1780, “His sonatas, duets, trios and concertos are too well known for us to discuss them here; they still represent the finest school for those wishing to specialize in the violin” (p. 8). These attractive works may be summarily characterized as a French take on Vivaldi’s innovations. Leclair had grown up in Lyons, where he trained as a dancer and fiddler. He then went to Turin, where he studied with Corelli’s pupil Giovanni Battista Somis (1686–1763). Within the Vivaldian framework of his violin concertos, Leclair tended to lean to the Italianate side in the fast movements and to the French side in the middle movements, although those of his rondo-finales based on dance types echo French models as well.

Some excellent modern editions of single concertos have been published before now, but never a full score of an entire opus. (Leclair’s original publications of course comprised sets of parts.) This new edition by Louis Castelain of the six concertos of opus 7 is therefore a welcome development. Before describing the edition and discussing a few problems with it, I want to make clear that it is eminently serviceable, and belongs in any music collection hoping to support the study and performance of late baroque music.

The introduction, in French and English, presents a brief biography of Leclair, a description of the concertos’ only source (the first edition), an accounting of the editorial conventions employed, and notes for performers. Although most of this is comme il faut, there are a few things I would question. In the biography, for instance, Leclair is said to have studied and worked in Turin in 1722 and 1726, but documentation exists for only the latter period; the putative 1722 visit appears to be based solely on a misunderstanding found in an obscure nineteenth-century Italian book. Then, it is true that at the end of his life Leclair directed the music and theater presentations of the Duc de Gramont at the private theater of his country residence in Puteaux, at the time a rural landscape filled with vineyards, now a district of metropolitan Paris; but during “the season” the duke’s entertainments took place at his residence in the city. Finally, it is, I think, misleading...