SKU: HL.49045889

9.0x12.0x0.33 inches.

As far back as I can remember, I have always been fascinated with fairy tales: with their archetypal characters and set phrases like'Once upon a time...'and'...they all lived happily ever after'. Fairy tales were however also a source of unrest for me as a seismograph of mankinds underlying primal fears and desires. So as a performer and composer I have always felt that Robert Schumann's Marchenerzahlungen [Fairy Tales] (scored for the same instrumentation as my own composition) was a disjointed, complex contemporary work - despite the innocence and naivety of its initial appearance. I therefore do not intend my own Es war einmal (Once upon a time...)to be a mere sentimental, nostalgic flight into the distant past, but as a naive and fantastical alternative concept to our genuine world with all its upheavals. Jorg Widmann.

SKU: BT.YE0009

Very little is known about the two sonatas which appear here in their original keys. They were placed in the library of the Music School in Oxford at the end of the seventeenth century in a form convenient for playing (i.e.unbound). The library was catalogued by Hake between 1850 and 1855 and the sonatas were eventually bound in 1855 with other instrumental and vocal manuscripts of the same period, some of which are dated 1698.

The sonatasare both inscribed on the title page Sonata Violone Solo. Col Basso per l'Organo, o Cembalo. A third sonata bears the words Sonata Violino e Violoncino â?¦ di Giovannino del Violone. Giovannino (=Little, or Young John)musthave been a performer, and although the third sonata has been copied by a different hand, it is conceivable that Giovannino is a connecting link between the three. He cannot, however, be assumed to be theirauthor.

The Violone was a six-stringed instrument with frets, and there is evidence to suggest that the Contrabasso of the same period was similar but probably a little larger; the Violoncino (=Little Violone, orVioloncello) must have been smaller. The word 'Violone' was also used as a collective term embracing all members of the Viol family, which means that the sonatas might well have been written for a tenor or a bass Viol, and notnecessarily a Violone as such. Indeed, when they are played on a Violone, or Double Bass the continuo bass line must be played at a lower pitch than the solo instrument, to prevent inversion of the intended harmony. (The use ofa Violone/Double Bass continuo or 16' organ tone would overcome this problem.)

The editor has added no ornaments or embellishments to the solo part as it appears in the original manuscript. It is open to debate whether aViolone player, owing to the very nature of his instrument, would have used any but the simplest melodic decorations. Nevertheless, the performer should acquaint himself thoroughly with those seventeenth century traditions thatare known today (see Dart.