Here we have twelve excellent intermediate-level keyboard sonatas by Daniel Türk, whose Klavierschule, oder Anweisung zum Klavierspielen für Lehrer und Lernende, mit kritischen Anmerkungen (Leipzig: Schwickert; and Halle: Hemmerde und Schwetschke, 1789) is an invaluable source for classical-era performance practice. Musicians and scholars who are already familiar with that book will welcome these model compositions; those who encounter Türk for the first time through this publication might want to explore the Klavierschule for its comprehensive and accessible discussion of ornamentation, articulation and other topics.

Published in two volumes, Türk's twelve Leichte Klaviersonaten (Leipzig and Halle: Breitkopf, 1783) are reminiscent of contemporary works by C. P. E. Bach and Haydn, and present a wide range of expression – from the jubilant C major of the fourth sonata's Allegro con spirito to the plaintive Largo molto e mesto of the third sonata. The pieces are attractive, and their appearance in a modern edition is very welcome. However, I was disappointed that a translation of Türk's own preface to the pieces was not included – both the substance of the composer's remarks and the way he expresses himself are fascinating. The excerpt quoted later in this review, on tempo modification and expression, gives a sample of the composer's distinctive voice, an entertaining mix of instruction and irony.

Although a translation would have been helpful for the reasons outlined above, there are more fundamental flaws with this edition that lead me to hope that a revised version will be published. Let me begin with the Critical Notes, which appear on a single page at the end of the Foreword, and are identical in both collections. These notes state, ‘The replacements we have made respond to evident mistakes in the original score. . . . Below we present a summary of these substitutions’ (xi; all the passages to which the editors refer are found in Collection II). There are three, and each of them is problematic. According to the first substitution, ‘Voice-leading in the cue-sized tenor voice should be inverted e′ to f′ instead of f′ to e′’ (xi). This was genuinely puzzling to me: f¹ to e¹ seems correct in the original, and, despite this critical note, the progression is unchanged in the edition. The subsequent editorial note clarifies that ‘the voicing of the b-flat chord has been modified [twice] so it coincides with the voicing of the tonic chord that initiates the theme at measure 1’. This is, in my opinion, utterly unjustified. The variety notated by Türk is perfectly reasonable, and so the consistency demanded by the editors seems arbitrary and unnecessary. The third, and final, point reads: ‘Türk provides two fingerings for the downbeat note. Presumably “2” for the first presentation and “1” for its repetition. As this can cause confusion we have only used “2”, which works in both instances’ (xi). Once again, this clarification notwithstanding, the edition actually prints ‘2–1’, which is even more strange and confusing.

Make no mistake: the editors completely missed the boat on this third point. As Figure 1 shows, the ‘2’ and the ‘1’ appear at the beginning of a bar with a repeat sign (at the end of the first section) and correspond to a ‘first ending’ and ‘second ending’, not a fingering. The first time through this passage, as shown in Figure 1, we read the stem-up version of the crotchet in the bass followed by the semiquaver rest and the notes that lead back to the beginning; on the repeat we read the stem-down version, in which the crotchet is followed by a rest of equal duration.

Figure 1.

Daniel Gottlob Türk, Sonata [Sinfonia] No. 6 in B flat major/ii, bars 10–12 (Türk, Sechs leichte Klaviersonaten, volume 2 (Leipzig and Halle: Breitkopf, 1783), 30)

In another unfortunate misunderstanding, the editors claim at the end of the Sources and Editorial Criteria section of the Foreword that ‘the present edition also preserves . . . his fermata with multiple inner dots, an invitation for the interpreter to extemporize’ (ix). Yet, as Figure 2 shows, this is actually the symbol for Bebung (the vibrato effect obtainable only on a clavichord), as described in paragraph 88 of chapter 4 of Türk's Klavierschule (293).

Figure 2.

Sonata No. 1 in C major/i, bars 49–50 (Türk, Sechs leichte Klaviersonaten, volume 1 (Leipzig and Halle: Breitkopf, 1783), 2)

The presence of this Bebung marking in the score further reminds us that Türk's primary keyboard instrument was the clavichord, as Raymond Haggh makes clear in the introduction to his translation of Türk's treatise (Daniel Gottlob Türk, School of Clavier Playing (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983)). It is too bad that the edition under review does not underline the particular suitability of these pieces for someone learning to play the clavichord, an instrument that is having something of a renaissance today.

There are other missed opportunities throughout the edition. The editors have, for instance, preserved Türk's idiosyncratic notation for tempo modification – special brackets to mark passages that should be hurried or retarded – and discuss it in the Foreword. But since tempo flexibility in the classical period has generated plenty of discussion (see, for example, Richard Hudson's Stolen Time: The History of Tempo Rubato (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994)), I was disappointed that the editors chose not to present the entirety of Türk's remarks, including his pre-emptive strike against those who might object to his explicit calls for manipulation of the tempo:

Interestingly, although ten of the twelve sonatas use the sign for playing more slowly (brackets above the staff), the opposite sign never appears – perhaps a hint that Türk's taste coincides with modern practice, where ‘taking time’ is praiseworthy, while ‘rushing’ is a fault to be eliminated.

And Türk introduces another ‘new sign’ along with the tempo brackets to convey ‘refined instructions for performance’: the accent (^), with the explanation that it should be performed ‘durch einen sanften Druck, ja nicht durch einen Stoß, mit einer scheinbaren Verweilung auf dem Tone’ (with a gentle pressure, not a poke, but rather with an apparent dwelling on the note; Sechs leichte Klaviersonaten, volume 1, no pagination). This, too, would be of interest to the modern player, since Türk's prescription is at odds with today's understanding of this sign. Türk's own preface explains the accent and the brackets, but, unfortunately, provides no explanation for the asterisks combined with the symbol for a short trill (Pralltriller) that are found in bars 54 to 57, on page seven, of the first collection's second sonata. The editors wisely reproduce the original notation; I only wish they had acknowledged the mystery, sparing the reader any potential anxiety. Just why the edition does not attempt to explain this marking is not clear.

For the most part, the music has been nicely engraved. It is spacious, with decent, well-placed page turns. Closer inspection, however, reveals a surprising number of flaws. The beginning of the second movement of the second sonata in collection 1, for example, is missing dots on the second notes, and misaligned appoggiaturas appear throughout the collection (compare, for example, the edition's collection 1, Sonata No. 2/ii, bars 1, 2 and 10, on page 8, with the original in Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Sonata No. 2 in D major/ii, bars 1–3 (Sechs leichte Klaviersonaten, volume 1, 8)

There are, unfortunately, other issues with typesetting. Although difficult to see at first, another such oversight produced collisions between symbols: in collection 2, Sonata No. 1/iii, bar 105, for instance, a forte sign appears superimposed on the second note in the lower staff (7). And, in the case of collection 1, Sonata No. 2/iii, bar 19, a quaver rest belonging to the upper voice obscures the minims of the lower voice (10).

Other careless errors included transcription mistakes in the titles of movements or pieces (the very first movement is ‘Moderato assai e grazioso’, but the ‘e’ did not make it into the edition; Türk entitled the last piece in the collection ‘Sinfonia’, not ‘Sonata’, as it appears here) and there are more wrong notes than one would expect to find in a careful modern edition. The written text also could have been improved with more careful attention. The notes mention ‘Türk's employment of cue-sized notes to indicate the optative character of certain inner voices’ (ix; my emphasis). I had to look up the word ‘optative’, a term referring to Greek grammar. Surely the intended word was ‘optional’, which somehow escaped the proofreaders.

In summary, this is a laudable, but seriously flawed publication. If it were up to me, Artaria would offer an updated version that includes a translation of Türk's preface, a revised Foreword, and some additional proofreading of the musical text. Türk's Klavierschule has already secured his reputation as a pedagogue. These pieces provide a worthy complement to that work; they deserve a wider public.