"Just you wait, Henri Eccles, just you wait."This was a household joke thirty-seven-odd years ago, back in the days when my father and his wife, Susan Miron, used to perform their viola and harp transcription of the "Eccles" sonata.
We know very little about Henri Eccles (also known as Henry Eccles). His father, Solomon Eccles (also known as Solomon Eagle), was a violinist and composer who burned all of his compositions when he became a Quaker in order to distance himself from the church music of the middle 17th century. Henri's older brother John (1668-1735) was a composer for the theater in London, and as Master of the Kings Musick he served William III, Queen Anne, and King George I and II.
Henri Eccles, who left London for Paris, published two sets of sonatas for violin and continuo, one in 1720 and the other in 1723. In a 1923 letter to the Musical Times, the British music scholar and critic W. Barclay Squire noted that Eccles appropriated 18 movements of 1720 set from works by Giuseppi Valentini and Francesco Antonio Bonporti.
The G minor Sonata is the eleventh sonata of the 1720 set, and if we take account of Mr. Squire’s observations, it may not have been written by Mr. Eccles. Still, this charming, catchy, and probably pilfered piece of Italian loveliness has remained in the repertoire of violinists, violists, double bass players, and cellists for centuries, making Henri Eccles a household name.
Look at the second movement of this 1713 Bonporti Sonata. Eccles might have supplied the continuo realization (see the link below for the 1720 publication), but he clearly lifted the violin line from Bonporti.
Given this pedigree of pilferage, I had to arrange it for string orchestra. There are copyist errors in the 1720 publication which are pretty easy to spot. It served me well as a basis for this arrangement. I hope that people will enjoy playing it and listening to it.
You can listen to it here, and get the score and parts here.
The music will also be available on this page of the IMSLP.
1 comment:
I find you again, Elaine! I am working on a new "realization" of the figured bass part of the Eccles Sonata. AND I am involved with an intergenerational string orchestra. We will definitely try this arrangement. Thank you so much!
Post a Comment