Review of Michael O'Loghlin, 'Frederick the Great and his Musicians: The Viola da Gamba Music of the Berlin School', Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, xviii, 253 pp. ISBN 978 075465 885 6

Abstract

Michael O'Loghlin's 'Frederick the Great and his Musicians' is a substantial revision of the author's dissertation on the Berlin viola da gamba school submitted to the University of Queensland in 2002. Peter Holman provides a foreword, recommending the book as a distinguished addition to a growing corpus of literature on schools' of eighteenth-century viola da gamba music. Following the author's introduction, the six remaining chapters fall broadly into two areas of inquiry: one concerns the musical life and aesthetics at Frederick the Great's court in general (Chapter Two) and the biographical details of viola da gamba musicians and composers active there (Chapters Six and Seven); the other concerns more technical aspects of the Berlin viola da gamba repertoire's transmission, its forms and genres, and, finally, a discussion of its practice of varying instrumentation for new and existing works (Chapters Thee to Five, respectively). In addition to a comprehensive bibliography including relevant primary sources and German-language scholarship, a thematic catalogue of surviving works for viola da gamba composed at Berlin appears as an appendix to the book.