Studien zur Dresdner Uberlieferung von Instrumentalkonzerten deutscher Komponisten des 18. Jahrhunderts.(Review)

By Manfred Fechner. (Dresdner Studien zur Musikwissenschaft, 2.) Laaber: Laaber-Verlag, 1999. [437 p. ISBN 3-89007-349-2. DM 128.]

From 1694 to 1763, Dresden's Churfurstlich Sachsische Capell- und Cammer Musique contributed much to the city's status as Europe's most important concerto center north of Venice. This acclaimed court orchestra regularly participated in Hofkonzerte and Tafelmusiken, as documented by numerous primary sources housed at the Sachsische Landesbibliothek --Staats- und Universitatsbibliothek Dresden. Manfred Fechner, a student of Vivaldi scholar Karl Heller, first investigated Dresden Concerto manuscripts in his insightful 1992 dissertation (University of Rostock). In this revised version, he draws attention to 226 autographs and manuscripts of concertos composed by Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767), Johann David Heinichen (1683-1729), Johann Georg Pisendel (1687-1755), Johann Friedrich Fasch (1688-1758), Gottfried Heinrich Stolzel (1690-1749), Johann Joachim Quantz (1697-1773), and Johann Gottlieb Graun (1702/3-1771). Their works shed light on the Dresden orchestra's repertory and chronicle the development of the concerto con molti istromenti in northern Europe during the first half of the eighteenth century. In the years 1765-68, orchestral scores and parts dating from that earlier period, as well as compositions from the late concertmaster Pisendel's estate, were cataloged and stored away in a closet, "Schranck No: II" (p. 11), having received a generic orchestral-library cover.

Taking Heller's Die deutsche Uberlieferung der Instrumentalwerke Vivaldis (Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag fur Musik, 1971) as his starting point, Fechner carefully examines the manuscripts and provides approximate dates of composition, tracing each primary source to either the orchestral library or Pisendel's personal music collection. Interestingly, Pisendel was a major collector of music during the early eighteenth century, and most of the deposited scores are from his own library, as Fechner points out. Fechner also analyzes the handwriting of each composer (pp. 26-42), investigates in detail the autographs and manuscripts prepared by Pisendel (pp. 43-59), and describes watermarks (pp. 60-66, 138-40). He presents new clues on the identities of scribes (pp. 66-132), the most prolific of whom are "A" (Johann Gottfried Grundig?) and "D" (Johann George Kremmler? Johann Gottlieb Morgenstern?), and he provides multiple handwriting samples (pp. 141-206). An exemplary, ...