Work 9: Le prime sonate (1739)
Rudolf Rasch
The Thirty-One Works of Francesco Geminiani
Work 9: Le prime sonate (1739)
“Le prime sonate a violino e basso” (The first sonatas for violin and bass) is in fact an incomplete title, it should be complemented by the next phrase on the title page: “nouvamente ristampate” (newly reprinted). The volume is indeed a new edition of Geminiani’s first sonatas, that is, the Violin Sonatas published in 1716. According to th title page the sonatas are not only reprinted but also “con diligenza corrette” (with diligence corrected) But this phrase is an understatement: rather then just corrected the sonatas are thoroughly revised and partly recomposed, to a level that they can in a way be considered new compositions, depending on what criteria would be applied to such a designation. The new edition has much more ornamentation than the original one and is also characterised by the addition of fingering marks.
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