Hercule en Dieu.

by Carl Ditters Von Dittersdorf and edited by Allen Badley. Artaria Editions/Theodore Presser Company (588 N. Gulph Rd., long of Prussia, PA 19406), 2O00. 31 pp., $28. Intermediate--late intermediate.

Artaria Editions (Wellington, New Zealand) has published a beautiful edition of Carl Ditters Von Dittersdorf's Sonata for Fortepiano, Four Hands, in C Major. The work is from a series of symphonies written in the early 1780s and based on Ovid's Metamorphoses. Although not all the symphonies survive, three are preserved in arrangements by the composer for piano duet. This edition contains one of those surviving duet versions, a work in four-movements (allegro e vivace, adagio non troppo, tempo di minuetto and vivace) varying in difficulty from intermediate to upper intermediate levels.

The edition is printed on heavy paper with a layout making it easy to read. The measures are numbered for ease in ensemble playing and rehearsing, but there are no fingerings given, few articulation suggestions and only an occasional dynamic marking--essentially this is an Urtext edition. The editor, Allen Badley, gives the reader just the right amount of information about the work's origin in the forward, and he reprints Von Dittersdorf's preface to the work, which describes the story of Hercules as told in the music. Although the story is very dramatic and the editor suggests, "Nothing even approaching the routine intrudes into this symphony," the first movement is rather repetitive, and the secondo part in particular is not especially inventive or interesting. Most of the melodic material is given to the primo player, and the secondo player is left with page after page of primary triads played in unison or arpeggiated or a bass line doubled between the hands. The shorter second movement in C minor involves some more complex harmonies, and the last movement is the most interesting of the four--a fugal movement based on a chromatic theme, closing with an adagio section. The secondo is in bass clef throughout and the primo in treble, and the melody is mostly in the right hand of the primo part, with occasional doublings in the secondo part.

Given the high cost of this edition contrasted with the number of moderately priced piano four-hand collections available for late-intermediate students, I doubt many teachers would find this publication a compelling one to add to their duet teaching repertory. However, it is a work that I had not previously encountered in standard duet collections. Reviewed by Sue Haug, Ames, Iowa.