Review

Giovanni Battista Buonamente
Sonata:

Arranged by Kevin Henry


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Publisher: Wehr's Music House
Date of Publication: 2009
URL: http://www.wehrs-music-house.com

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 5 trombones

Giovanni Battista Buonamente was an early 17th century Italian violinist and composer. This five-voice sonata, bearing many of the classic features of a late Renaissance canzona, will remind most listeners of the music of Giovanni Gabrieli, born about forty years earlier. The work opens with all voices stating the classic long-short-short canzona rhythm then progressing into polyphonic imitation. The strong unified rhythms of the opening satisfyingly return at times. As expected, a contrasting triple meter passage briefly appears followed by a return of the opening style to end the piece. Reasonable instrument ranges include a first part that extends up to b-flat1 while hanging mostly in the c1 to f1 range (with some rests) and a fifth part sitting mostly in the D-flat to B-flat register. As one might expect in this kind of polyphony, the bottom voice has a generous amount of activity requiring a strong player. Performed one-per-part, all five players must be confident in their counting, especially considering that cadences don’t always fall on the ‘big downbeats.’ The counterpoint is not so dense that this couldn’t be used with doubled voices in a trombone choir but sloppy rhythm on doubled parts will quickly turn this into mud. The tonal area of B-flat minor requires extra attention to those pesky G-flats. Also, note that the first and second parts are given in tenor clef. The edition is adequate but could have been improved by the inclusion of program notes and better quality paper. Fortunately, the piece is lightly edited. Kevin Henry specifically mentions this decision in his notes saying, “The lack of markings is intended to encourage the performers to listen rather than read.” 

-Brad Edwards
University of South Carolina