New Volume in Series B Published: Trio sonatas

Friday, December 2, 2016

The newest volume in RISM’s Series B has just been published:

Ludwig Finscher, Laurenz Lütteken, Inga Mai Groote, eds., Die Triosonate. Catalogue Raisonné der gedruckten Quellen. RISM B/XVII. Munich: Henle, 2016. ISBN 978-3-87328-156-1

For one of the best-loved chamber music genres of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – the trio sonata – there is now a comprehensive bibliography available. The two-volume catalogue raisonné, which was funded by the Balzan-Stiftung and the Universität Zürich, compiles not only all trio sonatas from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that appeared in print, but delivers detailed information and introductory remarks to the sources and works. The printed catalog is accompanied by an online database with various search possibilities and thereby enables scholars as well as performers to explore this important repertoire. The publication was presented at the Universität Heidelberg on 18 November 2016.

The trio sonatas in this publication describe works for two upper voices and basso continuo, regardless of what instrumental designation appears on the print. Composers born after 1760 are not included in the catalog. The choice to focus on trio sonatas that appeared in print was made in order to consider questions of transmission (dating and attribution) and the important role the printed medium played concerning the history of the genre.

In the catalog, sonatas are listed with their movements, keeping the original names of movements and time signatures. Brief commentary contains comments on the repertory and in some cases biographical information about the composer. The complex database offers different ways of searching, including publisher, place of publication, dedicatee, year of publication, key, and name of movement. (For the database, go to http://www.uzh.ch/musik/ssl-dir/mwitriosonate/ and register with the access code 3Sona10). The database will be imported into the RISM online catalog at a later point in time.

Category: New publications