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Arcangelo Corelli.

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Arcangelo Corelli. 12 Concerti grossi, Op. 6/1-12. Edited by Richard Platt. New Urtext Edition. London: Ernst Eulenburg Ltd., c1997. [Pref. in Eng., Ger., Fr., p. v-xxxvii; textual notes, p. xxxviii-xlvi; facsim. reprod. of 1714 title page, p. xlviii; score, 287 p. ISMN M-2002-1891-6; ISBN 3-7957-6726-1; Edition Eulenburg no. 1826-37; EE 6882. [pounds sterling]18.]

What value is it still possible to add to a scholarly edition of Arcangelo Corelli's venerable and venerated Concerti grossi, op. 6, first issued in a modern edition in 1891 by Joseph Joachim and Friedrich Chrysander (Les oeuvres de Arcangelo Corelli, vols. 4-5 [London: Augener; reprint, 1952, 1965, etc.]; and as Complete Concerti grossi [New York: Dover, 1988]) and published as the fourth volume of the Corelli Gesamtausgabe in 1978 (ed. Rudolf Bossard [Cologne: Arno Volk])? As far as the score is concerned, there is little enough to do, since there exists a clearly identified editio princeps, brought out in Amsterdam by Estienne Roger in 1714, which is so accurate in textual terms as to prompt a claim (only slightly exaggerated) that it is error-free. The one extant source that does not go back, directly or indirectly, to this edition consists of drafts of two movements in the composer's hand preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin--Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Mus. Ms. autogr. A. Corelli 1). These are the Corrente of the tenth concerto and the optional Pastorale concluding the eighth concerto, "fatto per la notte di Natale."

The prime justification for a new edition, leaving aside purely commercial factors, has to be the quality of the information provided on the circumstances of composition of these classic works and possibly also on their reception history and matters of performance practice. In the year preceding the copyright date (1997) of this Eulenburg edition, there appeared...

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