Thomas Arne - Concerto No. 3 in A major 1/4

[stickom]

I am not sure is it one of the J Christian Bach – Mozart style, but it is definitely melodious and very fashionable. Very refreshing!

[sunsdomain]

"[Arne] could scarcely complete a phrase without embarrasing himself"!

...nothing like some good ol' musical invective!

[GeriHew]

Methinks that Arne was simply too tuneful for musical snobs to appreciate.

"he covers up his deficiencies with endless ornamentation" is just about the silliest comment you could make about this concerto if you ask me. This is music full of melody and invention. Way ahead of any other British composer of his day.

[TheCrazyCello]

Haha I freely admit to musical snobbery. I think music is the one area of life where bigotry should be allowed - and I am bigoted. If it's by Arne it's doubtful I'll enjoy it and I have to justify my dislike with silly comments like that. However I uploaded this for people like you, who clearly enjoy it. So at least some good has come of Arne putting pen to paper :)

[xlmp96]

@TheCrazyCello I would wager you're a John S. Brook fan then. The epitomy of musical snobbery and boredom :-)

Long live Boyce, Handel, Albinoni and Arne - the makers of interesting and entertaining music, and down with the Tutonic boredom of Herr. Brook ;-)

[TheCrazyCello]

@xlmp96 Not at all, if you browse my channel you'll see I'm quite the proponent of Boyce! I also adore Handel. Albinoni I find a little trite and Arne overblown but that's just a matter of taste. Down with Teutonic boredom and up with Saxon splendour. If you want really interesting and entertaining music go to Saxony! Heinichen, Pisendel, Quantz, Zelenka, Fasch, Zelenka, Hasse, Zelenka and more Zelenka! Vivaldi learnt all he knew there (and then passed it on to those such as Albinoni!)

[xlmp96]

@TheCrazyCello Ummm, not sure about Venice, or Italy, owing everything to the Saxonians, there was Corelli don't forget. Small point - Leipzig is in Saxony... so lets just say down with Mr. Brook ;-)

[TheCrazyCello]

@xlmp96 I am of course being absurd, I hoped that was obvious. However Vivaldi did make frequent visits to the court in Dresden and the catholic Hofkapelle there under Augustus the Strong and a lot of stylistic elements he developed can be traced back there. However Corelli was Roman, not Venetian, and very much in the tradition of Stradella, Scarlatti etc, which is highly distinct from the Venetian style as exemplarised by Vivaldi.

[TheCrazyCello]

@TheCrazyCello As for Mr Brook, I have never heard of the dude, you said he was Teutonic so I went along with that! I know Leipzig is in Saxony as there is a certain prominent name associated with Leipzig which is missing from my list (not because Bach's music is in any way inferior to those I mentioned, it's just too far removed stylistically from the rest, even though he was great friends and admirers of many of them, he also failed consistantly to get a job in Dresden)

[firebreathone]

It doesn't really do much for me... It just misses the emotional depth of many of his contemporaries. It also sounds a bit too pompous for my taste..

[ukotaf]

Oh, no! It's lovely music. Arne is great! I've recently played a couple of his sonatas. I find them really charming.

[TheCrazyCello]

Also, he covers up his deficiencies with endless ornamentation, which grates. The English style is supposed to be clean and free from extraneous ornamentation, Charles Burney criticised "inferior" composers of excessive ornamentation - a tacit jibe directed partly towards Arne as he was by reputation far from inferior in the eye of the public at the time.

[HARMONICO101]

Though I enjoy his music (I have uploaded his G minor harpsichord concerto), having also played said piece as first fiddle, Arne makes it way more difficult than it needs to by making us shift impractically relative to the phrasing just to make those trills he throws in everywhere.

[TheCrazyCello]

@HARMONICO101 I played Overture 5 from the 8 Overtures recently and had the same problem. Impractical shifts to deal with figurations he'd clearly written at the keyboard, as they all fell nicely under the hand. Not so on the violin! At least not a baroque one where shifting down is a nightmare anyway.

[TheCrazyCello]

I'm afraid I have to agree with firebreathone. I've not heard any evidence in Arne's compositions that he has any of the subtle skill in drawing the "passions fondly along" as John Lockmann puts it as was the purpose of Baroque music. Instead he seems more concerned with keeping up to date with the latest fads and trends at the expense of integrity so that his works, as you put it are simply that: "charming" and little more.

[coaxqueen]

So, you crazy cello, you posted these to show to the world how snob and exagerated Arne was? oh man, so feel sorry too for this italianate ornamentator named Handel

[TheCrazyCello]

I posted these, because other people may enjoy them more than me, and see a different side to them. Also because they are some of the best keyboard concertos written in England at the time, and because the performance is on a copy of the earliest surviving English piano, which itself merits a listen :)

And for the record, I don't fault Handel at all. Arne's style of ornamentation is more in line with the French than the Italian style anyway....

[coaxqueen]

Anyway thnx for postin' this rec. I felt in love with it few years ago, and, I believe the edition is based on the original MS. (I guess Peter Holman is inside of this)

[coaxqueen]

Un fortunatetly I don't have this rec. but you should take a look to the Cantilena and Trevor Pinnock recs. (I listened both complete at the radio) they ornamentations are quite different (maybe in the french style you're sayin') I think this ornaments are from Paul Nicholson, (he's the best and a very skillful ornamentator, I have other recs of him)

[coaxqueen]

So this ain't an original ornamentation by Arne, anyway, this recording is by far (with the Linley recs.) the most accurate and amazin' perfomance of a keyboard concertos ever heard =)

[TheCrazyCello]

The Cantilena recording is based on a modern publication, I don't know anything about the English Concert recording though. For an example of what I'm criticising, the trills in the opening motif of this recording are autograph, personally I don't think they add anything, rather detract from what is otherwise a concise and robust phrase. Other aspects which I don't like are some weak harmonic progressions involving 2nd inversion chords, it just has a much more brittle and fragile feel to it

[TheCrazyCello]

than a piece by someone like Stanley or Boyce, however I'm prejudiced as I'm all for Boyce and not for Arne. But I don't go as far in my criticism as Hawkins, who claimed that "[Arne] could scarcely complete a phrase without embarrasing himself"!

[PeriodinstrumentfaN]

I haven't listened to this in quite a while !!! thanks for uploading !!! :>

[TheCrazyCello]

You're welcome. I'm not a big fan of Arne, a lot of arrogance seems to come through in his writing and I find the "galanterie" which he re-wrote into these concertos to be affected and a little sickly. Despite this they are still some of his best works, and some of the finest English keyboard concertos. It's also interesting to hear what an English piano sounded like before Viennese influences took over.

[PeriodinstrumentfaN]

:> Your choice of the Rotunda, Ranelagh is perfect...and reflects that of the album cover.

I wonder does it still exist today? the Rotunda? :-/

[TheCrazyCello]

I just checked the album cover and it's almost the same picture (I'd forgotten) except it seems to have been painted from just to the left of the far entrance as you see it in this picture. No, the Rotunda was knocked down over 200 years ago... I expect some ridiculously expensive Chelsea flats now occupy it's old location. Part of the Vauxhall gardens still exists as a park called "Spring garden" however.