Sonate a Violino Solo, e Basso. Dedicate a Sua Altezza Reale, Il Serenissimo Principe Reale di Pollonia, et Elettorale di Sassonia da Francesco Maria Veracini Fiorentino Compositore di Camera di Sua Maestà Opera Primo Libro Primo [-Secondo]. [Op. 1]. [Score]

Amsterdam: Chez Estienne Roger & Le Cene [PNs 488-489], 1725. Oblong folio. Contemporary plain dark brown wrappers. 1f. (recto title "... Libro Primo," verso blank), [i] (blank), 2-29, [i] (secondary title: "... Libro Secondo"), 31-37, [i] (blank), 39-53, [i] (blank), 55-61, [i] (blank), 63-69, [i] (blank), 71-[81], [i] (blank) pp. Engraved throughout.

Scored for violin and figured basso continuo.

With Edw. Hodgson 1750" in contemporary manuscript to foot of titles; contemporary markings including the letter H and a drawing of a horse to final blank page.

Occasional later performance markings in lead and blue pencil.

Provenance
Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), musician and pioneer in the Early Music revival, with handstamp "Dolmetsch Library" and "IIC22" to blank verso of title and foot of secondary title.

Wrappers worn and creased, with small tears and chips to edges; spine partially reinforced with light brown paper. Some internal wear, browning, and soiling; title partially detached and slightly soiled and browned with small chips, verso of inner margin with remnants of early adhesive; upper margin slightly trimmed with occasional loss of page numbers; two small holes to upper margin of final leaf, affecting one notehead; paper repair to upper outer corner of final blank leaf. Second edition, second issue. Hill: The Life and Works of Francesco Maria Veracini, p. 85. Lesure p. 623. BUC p. 1038. RISM V1207.

Florentine violinist and composer Veracini made his mark as a highly individual, independent virtuoso in some of the most distinguished musical centers of Europe, including Dresden and London. His output included instrumental, operatic, and theoretical works. While eighteenth-century England is known for its fondness for Italian music and musicians, cross-cultural influence also flowed in the other direction: Veracini composed Italianate versions of English folk tunes, and wrote music for an Italian adaptation of Shakespeare's 'As You Like It.' The present 1721 collection of violin sonatas showcases Veracini's diversity of expression: French overture style, Italian tarantella rhythms, and English jigs meet, sometimes within the same piece, or even within the same movement. As a harmonist, Veracini is free and experimental: one Giga, for instance, in E minor modulates to the distant key of F minor, all within the first section of binary dance form

"Burney remarked that 'by travelling all over Europe [Veracini] formed a style of playing peculiar to himself'. The same might be said of his style of composing. His later concertos, when compared to his first (1712), clearly reveal the influence of Vivaldi's concertos op. 3 (1711) which he certainly heard during his years in Venice. His sonatas of 1716 are somewhat like Corelli's, but use no fugues or imitation, frequently employ repetition in place of sequence, display symmetrical phrasing and show a strong preference for tonic recapitulations. In a word, they seem as modern as those of Tartini and Locatelli published in the 1730s. But the op. 1 sonatas of 1721 are more contrapuntal, perhaps owing to the influence of the German composers at Dresden, from whom he certainly got the idea of beginning a suite of dances with a French overture (unheard of in Italian solo sonatas). ... [Veracini] was original and independent." John Walter Hill in Grove Music Online.