Thomas Augustine Arne (1710-1778), Eight Harpsichord Sonatas
Christopher Hoogwood – harpsichord Jacobus Kirckman, London, 1766 (Side 1) Thomas Blasser, London, 1744 (Side 2)
Record Producer Peter Wadland
Executive Producer Raymond Ware
Sound Engineer Trygg Tryggvason
Cover: Anthony Devis- The Duet, 1749 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London)
Released 1974 by The Decca Record Company Limited , London as part of Edition L’Oiseau-Lyre DSLO 502

Side 1 harpsichord Jacobus Kirckman, London, 1766 (24’30)
1. Sonata No.1 in F Major (6’45)
00:00 Andante
03:08 Adagio
03:25 Allegro
2. Sonata No.2 in E Minor (6’15)
06:40 Andante
09:44 Adagio
11:15 Allegrissimo
3. Sonata No. 5 in B flat Major (5’35)
12:51 Poco largo
14:52 Gavotta
4. Sonata No.6 in G Minor (5’40)
18:23 Affettuoso
22:04 Presto

Side 2 harpsichord Thomas Blasser, London, 1744 (33’45)
1. Sonata No.3 in G Major’ sol majeur’ G-dur (8’05)
23:59 Prelude
25:06 Allegro
28:21 Minuet (& 2 variations)
2. Sonata No.4 in D Minor (11”50)
32:00 Andante
35:44 Largo: Siciliano
37:35 Fuga: Allegro
40:45 Allegro
3. Sonata No.7 in A Major (6’35)
43:42 Presto
44:58 Andante
48:28 Allegro
4. Sonata No.8 in G Major (7’00)
50:19 Minuet (& 4 variations)

EIGHT HARPSICHORD SONATAS
John Stafford Smith, who knew Arne well, once described him as “a conceited Papist, an evil-living man, but a God-gifted genius for melody”, and it was undoubtedly his lyrical talent that compensated for the irregularities of his life and character. He was borm in the year of Handel’s arrival in England (1710), and when he died in 1778, Mozart was al ready 22 and about to write his “Paris” symphony. Like so many of the composers of this 5ettled but adventurious period, Arne found Eglish music in transition from the established Handelian manner to the lighter, more ‘affected’ style of the early classical writers; the suite was giving way to the sonata, minuets and gavottes were preferred to preludes and fugues.
Arne’s career lay primarily in the theatre, where his melodic gifts ensured his success not only in Italianate opera, but in masque and pantomime as well. His appointment in 1754 as composer to the Vauxhall Gardens meant that, in addition to songs, he was also required to produce organ concertos which were a feature of the concerts there. Apart from this, his output of concerted instrumental music consisted of two sets of orchestral overtures and seven trio sonatas. Possibly because he was a Catholic (unlike any of his well-known musical contemporaries) he left no organ voluntaries, and in fact his only published works for solo keyboard were the sonatas.

The collection shows every sign of having been put together hastily. It was unusual to have eight sonatas in a set (rather than six or. twelve), and the sequence of movements and keys in several sonatas is particularly hapha2;ard, suggesting that they were assembled from a number of random movements. In some places Arne himself has suggested a short linking passage to smooth this transition (as in Sonata I), but in other places this has to be supplied by the player (Sonatas 2 and 6). From the variety of the other composers advertized by Walsh on Arne’s original title-page (reproduced in facsimile on the’ cover of these notes), the Italian bias of English taste can readily. be . Arne was particularly advent.urous amongst the English in following the im:wvations of Zipoli, Alberti , and, most obviously, Scarlatti. He was one of the “several Subscribers” (along with Avison, Boyce,’ Pepusch, Stanley and Geminiani) to tlie volume set of Scarlatti’s sonatas that appeared in 1739, and the influence shows clearly in the allegro movements of Sonatas 1 and 3, as well as in the final variation of Sonata 6. The Italian “singing-allegro” style also accounts, lor the first movement of Sonata 1. Whereas the ‘ shorter and more nervous phrases of the opening of Sonata 2 reflect the ‘galant’ manner of the German writers, the following adagio (a curiously detached that needs some explanation) is the nearest that Arne ever approached to the English voluntary . Sonata 3 opens with a Prelude, to which Arne adds the instructions that “In this and other Preludes, which are meant as Extempore Touches before the Lesson begins, neither the Composer nor Performer are obliged to a Strictness of Time”. Handel had included several such preludes in his first collection of keyboard suites, and the whole of this sonata aims at a weightier, more baroque effect than the previous two, with definite ‘solo’ and ‘tutti’ passages in the second movement that suggest the concerto grosso, and a minuet finale made more important by the addition of two very idiomatic variations. The longest and most heterogeneous sonata(No.
4) offers most evidence of the disparate elements that Arne drew upon to make up the set.

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