Wagenseil: Concerto for Four Harpsichords

Series: A-R Special Publications  Publisher: A-R Editions
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Georg Christoph Wagenseil
Concerto for Four Harpsichords

Edited by JungHae Kim, Lawrence Chiou

S054 Wagenseil: Concerto for Four Harpsichords
978-1-9872-0860-3 Score + Part(s) (2023) 8.5x11, Score: vii + 46 pp.; 4 Partbooks
$84.00
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SKU
S054
Georg Christoph Wagenseil’s (1715–77) concerto for four harpsichords, scored without orchestra, remains the only known work of its kind based on entirely original material. There are no other known works for four harpsichords besides Bach’s concerto in A minor for four harpsichords and strings, BWV 1065, itself an adaptation of Vivaldi’s four-violin concerto in B minor, RV 580.
 
Wagenseil’s concerto provides an interesting footnote in the development of historical keyboard instruments. Alongside a few other Viennese keyboard works, the concerto features large bass intervals necessitating the use of the Viennese short octave—a keyboard configuration with multiply split bass keys unique to mid-18th-century Viennese keyboard building. This fact further establishes the relevance of early Viennese keyboard instruments in historical keyboard performance.
 
Several aspects of performance practice unique to Wagenseil’s concerto are discussed in the introduction to the edition: continuo realization for a keyboard concerto without orchestra, negotiating the requirements of the Viennese short octave on instruments with chromatic keyboards, and interpreting the notational idiosyncrasies of the manuscript source.
Allegro
Andante
Allegro
A versatile musician on historical keyboard instruments, JungHae Kim has appeared as a soloist with period-instrument ensembles as well as the San Francisco Symphony. She earned diplomas in harpsichord at Peabody, Oberlin, and the Sweelinck Conservatorium and completed her studies with Gustav Leonhardt. Kim is Professor of Musicianship and Music Theory at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
 
Lawrence Chiou studied historical performance with George Barth, Kumaran Arul, Elaine Thornburgh, and Anthony Martin at Stanford University, where he was awarded the Graduate Prize in Music for harpsichord performance and performed with the Stanford Baroque Soloists and St. Lawrence String Quartet. A data scientist evaluating autonomous vehicles for Alphabet, Chiou currently studies harpsichord with JungHae Kim.