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Article Excerpt
Johann Joachim Quantz. Seven Trio Sonatas. Edited by Mary Oleskiewicz. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, Inc., c2001. (Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 111.) [Acknowledgements, p. vii; introd., p. ix-xx; 7 plates; score, 102 p.; crit. report, p. 103-15. ISBN 0-89579-481-0. $60 (score); $38 (parts).]
Johann Joachim Quantz. Six Quartets for Flute, Violin, Viola, and Basso Continuo. Edited by Mary Oleskiewicz, with a basso continuo part realized by David Schulenberg. Ann Arbor, MI: Steglein Publishing, Inc., c2004. [Foreword, p. vi; pref., p. vii-xii; crit. report, p. xiii-xvii; score, 86 p.; and 5 parts. ISBN 0-9719854-3-X. $60 (set).]
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 Flote traversiere zu spielen (Berlin: J. F. Voss, 1752; facsim. reprint, Kassel: Barenreiter, 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...
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