Bach J.-S. 2 Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Cembalo

From the publishers

The Compozitor Publishing House • Saint-Peters­burg offers your attention the series “Violist’s Golden Repertoire”, edited by the distinguished musician and teacher Alexey Vladimirovich Lyudevig.

 Alexey Vladimirovich Lyudevig is the graduate of the Leningrad Conservatoire, wh ere he studied at professor A. G. Sosin, founder of viola class in Leningrad. 

Since 1960, after finishing the Conservatoire and postgraduate programme, A. Lyudevig started tea­ching at the Leningrad Conservatoire, bringing up the generation of excellent musicians.

A. Lyudevig has been working over 50 years in the world famous Philharmonic orchestra, conducted by Ye. Mravinsky and later by Yu. Temirkanov. During the years in the orchestra, the Laureate of the National Competition A. Lyudevig repeatedly played as the soloist, contributing as the first performer of many classical compositions as well as masterpieces of the 20th century music by P. Hindemith, B. Brit-ten, W. Walton, B. Bartók, J. Williams, B. Martinů, D. Mil­haud, A. Schnittke and others. 

Lyudevig was the first at the world stage to perform a lot of works of the Leningrad composers such as V. Tsytovich, D. Finko, G. Firtich, G. Korch­mar and many others. 

A lot of compositions have been recorded on vinyl and CDs at the Leningrad studio “Melodiya” and released in Russia, Japan, Germany and in the US.

The introduced series “Violist’s Golden Reper­toire” includes the substantial compositions of the world musical heritage.

From the editor

The viol or viola da gamba is one of a family of viols, which are bowed fretted stringed instruments that first appeared in Spain in the mid to late 15th century and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Viols are different in numerous distinctions from instruments of the violin family: the viols has sloped rather than rounded shoulders, c holes rather than f holes, fretted fingerboard. Viol has from 5 to 7 strings, rather then 4, and respectively a different tuning strategy (in fourths with a third in the middle rather than in fifths). The bow construction is different also.

All members of the viol family are played upright between the legs like a modern cello, hence the Italian name viola da gamba (it. “viol for the leg”) (but it hasn’t the endpin like the cello). This distinguishes the viol from the viola da braccio (it. “viol for the arm”). Currently, the term “viola da gamba” without qualification generally refers to the tenor viol.

Viola da gamba, being fretted instrument with the number of strings for more than four, has a very slight bend of the bridge, making it difficult to apply pressure on a single string without touching neighbor strings. The absence of the endpin at the viol also creates inconvenience of playing. Proliferation of the pianoforte, which is louder than harpsichord at the end of the 18th century demanded greater volume from stringed instruments to achieve the necessary balance in the ensemble. These reasons led to the ousting of viol by violin, viola and cello.

Max Zilbert