DEUTSCH ORGEL- UND CLAVIERMUSIK DES 17. JAHRHUNDERTS, WERKE IN ERSTAUSGABEN, GERMAN ORGAN AND KEYBOARD MUSIC OF THE 17th CENTURY, COLLECTION OF FIRST EDITIONS, ed. Siegbert Rampe. Bärenreiter 8426 and 8427. 2 vols. , €39.95 and €42.95. Siegbert Rampe's editions of German, Dutch, and other keyboard masters of the 17th and 18th centuries enjoy an almost iconic status through the Bärenreiter imprimatur, and it is unfortunate that Volume I in the present collection is riddled with typographical errors in the headings in nearly a dozen instances. Also, the collection is not dedicated solely and exclusively to first editions as the title suggests. Nevertheless, these two volumes contain the entire known keyboard output (in some cases single works) for sixteen composers. The Partita in six movements by Heinrich Biber (1644–1704; composer of the celebrated Passacaglia for unaccompanied violin) is his only known keyboard work, though probably itself a transcription from a lost string piece. Johann Valentin Eckelt (1673–1732), a pupil of Pachelbel and possibly a classmate of J. S. Bach's older brother and guardian Johann Christoph Bach, is represented by a Ciacona with no fewer than 60 variations on a seven-bar, C-major theme. A three-movement Suite by Phillipp Erlebach (1657–1714) is unusual, first, because of the tonality, F minor, and second, because it reverses the usual order of the Courante and Sarabande. The Emperor, Ferdinand III of Habsburg (1608–1657) is represented by a trifling Saraband in D minor, although His Majesty is known to have composed a large number of other, more elaborate vocal works. Despite attribution problems, Wilhelm Karges (c. 1613–99) is represented by four works, one of which borrows wholesale an entire concluding section from Froberger. A Praeludium in E minor, from a source in the hand of J. C. Bach (the Gehren Bach) is attributed by the editor to Pachelbel, though it runs only sixteen measures. A Suite in six movements by Johann Martin Radeck (c. 1623–84) begins with the earliest known example of an arpeggio prelude in Central German keyboard music, and concludes with a festive "pascal chaccone." The most interesting and largest-scaled works emanate from one of the more obscure composers, Georg Wilhelm Dietrich Saxer (d. 1740), whose five toccatas (one already published in 1983) aspire to a quintessential North German grandeur, but which disappoint in many particulars––if perhaps these were student works, then posterity may be all the poorer for the remaining losses. Volume I concludes with short pieces by Scheidt (a fragment, but with genuine mid-17th-century fingering), Scheidemann (a chromatic Fantasia, attr.), Theile, Wecker, and the Gehren J. C. Bach (attr.). Volume II opens with selections of anonymous pieces, including several verset-like miniatures from an interesting manuscript (Yale University, Osborn 533) whose earlier owners included Vincent Novello and Eugene Gigout. This same manuscript also transmits two new full-scale compositions by the Belgo-Dutch court organist Peeter Cornet (c. 1575–1633). Another Yale University-owned manuscript, LM 5005 (uncovered by the Bach scholar Peter Wollny in 1999), features four "chorale canzoni" by the Weimar court organist Christian Herbig (d. 1663)––stylistically familiar, manualiter settings of "Vater unser," "Wir glauben," Nun komm," and "Christ lag." Two toccatas by Johann Erasmus Kindermann (1616–55) contain pedal obligato, but no fugues, and the rhythmic character is disappointingly uniform. Bach's predecessor Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722) is known chiefly through print sources rather than through any manuscript tradition, but here, from an early-18th-century Viennese manuscript, is a short, six-voice Praeludium in D minor, followed by a more conventional four-part fugue. Samuel Michaelis (1597–1632) was organist at the Leipzig Nicolaikirche from 1628, and his Toccata â 3 demonstrates the pervasive influence of Sweelinck, even in 17th-century Leipzig. A multipartite Canzon in F minor by Marcus Olter (dates unknown) is a severe, but attractive piece in which nearly every measure contains the subject, and whose variety consists solely in the fact that the subject "flees" from voice to voice. Five anonymous secular song-settings attributed to Peter Phillips (1560/61–1628) include, in three instances, transcriptions of madrigals by Luca Marenzio (c. 1557–1630) and were probably intended pedagogically. A newly published Capriccio and Ricercar by Nicolaus Adam Strunck (1640–1700) are highly extended, expressive works, the latter written sopra la morte della mia carissima madre (on the death of the composer's mother). The volume concludes with a handful of pieces comprising the entire known keyboard work of Christoph Walter, Bartholomäus Weisthoma, and Melchoir Woltmann.

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