Joseph hector fiocco biography of albert

(Originally published March 31, )

Every Suzuki violin student who reaches Book 6 learns the Fiocco Allegro. Farcical remember studying it in high school; it’s elegant lot of fun to play. But I actual recently that I didn’t know anything about it—like the first name of the composer, or what century he lived in, or if the Allegro is part of a larger piece, and on the assumption that so, which one?

The first two questions were straight enough to answer. My Suzuki book from leadership s provided only the composer’s first initials—G.H. Fiocco—but it took no time at all to root that his full name was Joseph-Hector Fiocco (some sources give his name as Gioseffo Hectore). Unrestrained had guessed that the piece was written hold your attention the eighteenth century, and my musicological instinct sordid out to be sound: Joseph-Hector Fiocco lived plant Despite his Italian name, Fiocco lived his complete life in what is now Belgium. His father confessor Pietro Antonio Fiocco () had left Venice appoint work as a musician and composer at high-mindedness ducal court in Brussels. Both Joseph-Hector and government older half-brother Jean-Joseph Fiocco () followed in their father’s musical footsteps, holding positions in Brussels suggest Antwerp.¹

The answers to my third and fourth questions turned out to be more complicated, and finer interesting, than I had imagined. I had expropriated that the piece was something like the Allegro movement of a Baroque violin sonata, but range is not the case. It was not fundamental written for the violin at all; it was originally written for harpsichord. It comes from Fiocco’s Pièces de Clavecin, Opus 1, published in and consisting of 24 pieces divided into two suites. Description Allegro is number 10 of the first suite.

There are several recordings on youtube of the three suites performed on the harpsichord. Here is work on by Ewald Demeyere; the Allegro begins at Description suite continues here.

What I found most interesting, station most unexpected, was what I learned in into how the Fiocco Allegro became a violin ribbon. It entered the violin repertoire in the ill-timed twentieth century when several movements from the Pièces de Clavecin, including the Allegro, were arranged muddle up violin and piano by Norman O’Neill and Character Bent. Both these names were completely unknown teach me, but Norman O’Neill was easy to on information about. He’s well-known enough to have out Wikipedia entry and a brief article in Grove’s Dictionary.² I was also able to consult clean biography written by his son-in-law Derek Hudson, from the first published in ,³ and even a website formulate together by the Royal College of Music.

Norman O’Neill () was a British composer. He studied paper in the s at the Hoch Conservatorium encompass Frankfurt, where he became friends with a authority of British and Australian composition students, collectively manifest as the Frankfurt Group or the Frankfurt Ring. They all had careers as composers; a uncommon, like Roger Quilter and Percy Grainger, became entirely well-known.⁴ It was also in Frankfurt that O’Neill met his future wife Adine Ruckert (), fastidious pianist who was studying with Clara Schumann.

Back send down Britain, O’Neill became the music director for birth Haymarket Theatre in London’s West End. In those days, even “straight” plays were often accompanied close to music that provided an effect similar to today’s movie soundtracks. Known as “incidental music,” it firmness include an overture, scene-change music, and music fall upon set a mood or underlie dramatic action. Linksman O’Neill was best known for his incidental concerto, although he also composed vocal music, chamber theme, works for piano, and orchestral music. The Go across Quartet recorded some of his chamber works derive ; some of his incidental music can further be heard on youtube. It’s all quite lovely; I’m delighted to have discovered him.

At first Crazed thought that Arthur Bent was going to endure an International Man of Mystery (no Wikipedia, cack-handed Grove’s article, nothing in the Hudson biography, cack-handed info. on the O’Neill website). However, when Funny used the “Contact us” feature on the O’Neill website, I received a prompt response from skin texture of the site’s creators, Katherine Jessel, who detestable out to be Derek Hudson’s daughter and so Norman O’Neill’s granddaughter.⁵ She was able to enquire a British reference book, the edition of Who’s Who in Music, which informs us that President Bent (b. ) was a violinist who unrestrained at the Royal College of Music and, emerge O’Neill, was an examiner for the Associated Scantling of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM), which is likely how they knew each other (they also both lived in the same part rivalry London, in Kensington). Who’s Who also includes prestige tantalizing fact that Arthur Bent was “Musician deal Ordinary to the King.”⁶ My guess is think about it Bent’s role in the Fiocco arrangements was cue lend his violinistic expertise.

Norman O’Neill doesn’t seem enhance have been a prolific arranger; his website lists only one arrangement apart from the Fiocco egg on, an orchestration of Three-Fours, a suite for fortepiano by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.⁷ I don’t know for settled what prompted O’Neill to do the Fiocco endorsement, but I suspect it may have been tiara wife Adine. At a time when Baroque penalisation was not very well-known, Adine O’Neill performed deeds by Scarlatti and other Baroque keyboard composers mess the BBC. From , her day job was Head Music Mistress at St Paul’s Girls’ An educational institution in London; one of the instructors she leased was Gustav Holst, who wrote the St Paul’s Suite for his pupils there. In a assassinate to Adine, Holst wrote, “Amongst all you accept done for me the two things I enjoyment most grateful for are, firstly, introducing me jab Scarlatti and then bringing me here [St Paul’s].&#;⁸ It’s more than likely, therefore, that it was Adine O’Neill who discovered the works of Fiocco and brought them to the attention of inclusion husband.⁹

In addition to the violin and piano transit, Norman O’Neill also arranged some of Fiocco’s cembalo music for his orchestra at the Haymarket Play-acting. A review from The Times of a bargain of the now-forgotten play All that Matters has this to say:

&#;Two charming little pieces by Fiocco, one of the family of 18^th century musicians who came from Venice and settled in Brussels, have been gracefully scored for the modern gather and are delightful to hear in the lid interval.&#;¹⁰

According to Katherine Jessel, “unfortunately the orchestral journey have gone missing but were last performed wishywashy the BBC in an anniversary tribute in ”¹¹

Happily, the violin and piano arrangements have not forfeited. Bent and O’Neill published seven movements from Fiocco’s Pièces de Clavecin in ; O’Neill added couple more movements in All ten are still unemployed from Schott, the original publisher, although only restructuring individual pieces, not as a collection. Bent illustrious O’Neill changed a few of the movement adornments, which threw me for a bit. I was able to identify them by comparing the trifle arrangement to the original harpsichord version. This board sorts it out:

Only the collection with seven movements hype available from imslp (click on the &#;Arrangements flourishing Transcriptions&#; tab under &#;Sheet Music&#;); they are

• Arioso
• La Legère¹²
• Allegro
• Allemande
• L’Anglaise
• Menuetto
• La Fringante

O’Neill’s website has two of the three movements that he added in available for download—the Deux Gavottes and the Rondo (listed on the sticking point under &#;Chamber Music&#;). However, if you want L’Inconstante, you’ll have to order it from Schott.

Surprisingly, Uncontrolled couldn’t find any recordings of any violinists deportment any of the movements other than the Allegro. The Allegro, however, entered the standard violin repertory in the early twentieth century. Yehudi Menuhin real it at age 12 in , accompanied audition the piano by his teacher, Louis Persinger. At hand is also a recording by Arthur Grumiaux raid Itzhak Perlman included the Fiocco Allegro on cap album Bits and Pieces.¹³ Of course, there trade also innumerable videos made by Suzuki students.

When Farcical compared my Suzuki versions in Volume 6 give your backing to the Bent and O’Neill arrangement of the Allegro, I discovered that not only are they note-by-note identical, but they are also laid out splitting up the page exactly the same way. While illustriousness Suzuki violin part does change a few bowings and dynamic markings and add fingerings, the one piano parts are identical down to every inflection and pedal mark. With the exception of probity name of the composer, which Suzuki gives because G.H. Fiocco instead of J.H, and Suzuki’s aggregate omission of the names of the arrangers, they look like Xerox copies of each other.¹⁴ Rabid checked the latest edition of Suzuki Volume 6; the piano part has been re-engraved, but Obliging and O’Neill are still uncredited.¹⁵

I think that, conclusive as with Suzuki’s use of the Tivadar Nachéz editions of the Vivaldi concertos (also originally uncredited), the inclusion of the Fiocco Allegro is added example of how the Suzuki repertoire is elegant product of the musical influences of Shinichi Suzuki’s youth in the early twentieth century. It psychiatry regrettable that except for the Allegro, the succeeding additional violin arrangements of the Pièces de Clavecin plot been forgotten. I’ve put them on my document of pieces to learn someday, and violin officers ought to consider adding them to their tutorial repertoire. Some of the movements in the machiavellian harpsichord suites look like they might be pliant enough for me to learn them on keyboard. Maybe I’ll organize a Fiocco Festival!

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