Concerto Grosso Arrangements of Geminiani's Opus 1 Violin Sonatas

Abstract

Charles Avison was the leading advocate of the Italian concerto-grosso style in England during the eighteenth century. A pupil of Francesco Geminiani and a friend to many other Italian musicians who immigrated to England during this period, Avison wrote more than fifty works in the genre, including his well-known orchestral transcriptions of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas, and he was happy to assume the role of the genre's staunchest defender. Avison's arrangements of Geminiani's Sonatas for Violin and Basso Continuo, op. 1 (1716) were unknown to us until 2002, when they were discovered in the second of two of his workbooks that reappeared after being hidden for more than two hundred years. These works represent a significant addition not only to the repertoire and reputation of Avison, but also to our understanding of the influence of the Italian concerto-grosso style in England during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.