12 Trio Sonatas with Ripieno Parts after the Violin Sonatas op. 1

Between the first and the third version of Geminiani’s Sonatas Op. 1 there is a gap in time of over forty years. When Geminiani published his first version, he was nearly thirty years old; when the second version arrived, over fifty; and at the time of the third version, seventy.

Musical style around him had evolved from ‘late Baroque’ well into ‘galant’ or even ‘pre-Classical’ territory (however problematic one may consider each of these descriptions). Nevertheless, the melodic, harmonic and contrapuntal disposition of the sonatas remained basically unchanged.

Only the ‘format’ (trio sonatas with ripieno parts instead of solo sonatas) was altered, but the new format of the compositions was also a traditional one in its own right, having been used also by Geminiani himself since the 1730s.

The third version of Geminiani’s Op. 1 testifies to a recurrent trend in his career as a composer: a fondness for reworking earlier compositions and publishing them either in the same or in a different genre or format. In the former case we may speak of a revision; in the latter, of an arrangement.

The trio arrangements of the Sonatas Op. 1 prove completely satisfying in performance as musical compositions, unique representatives of a quite peculiar niche within the instrumental music of the middle decades of the eighteenth century.