Wanhal, Johann Baptist: Violin Concerto in B flat major (Weinmann IIb: Bb1) (AE364)

Wanhal, Johann Baptist (1739-1813)

Like the other Seitenstetten sources for Wanhal's violin concertos, V 1225 is untidily and inelegantly copied and contains numerous inconsistencies and minor errors. Nonetheless, the detailed markings in the parts suggest that the source from which they were copied was probably not too far removed from Wanhal's original. The errors and omissions are of the kind commonly found in 18th-century MS sources and do not necessarily indicate that they originate from an unusually corrupt source. In this edition the style and notation of articulation and dynamic markings have been standardised throughout and, where missing from the source, markings have been reconstructed from parallel passages. Where these are present in the Zagreb source , however, they have been taken over without comment; additionally, a number of pausible Zagreb markings which are otherwise missing in the Seitenstetten source have also been accepted as 'authentic'. Applied and reconstructed markings are indicated by the use of dotted slurs or brackets. Like most contemporary sources, the two MSS are inconsistent at times in their notation of appoggiature; these too have been standardised to minimise confusion. Obvious wrong notes have been corrected without comment; editorial emendations with no authority from the sources are placed within brackets. Although the edition inevitably represents something of a compromise in its partial adoption of the two sources it does, we feel, bring us closer to establishing the text Mozart may have had at his disposal in 1777. Allan Badley & Cliff Eisen