The violinist-composer Francesco Geminiani (born 1687 in Lucca, died 1762 in Dublin) was an exact contemporary of the better-known keyboardist-composers Rameau, J. S. Bach, Handel and Domenico Scarlatti. In music history textbooks, however, Geminiani's achievements are more often discussed alongside those of other violinist-composers of the time, such as Giovanni Battista Somis, Francesco Maria Veracini, Tartini and Locatelli – that is, the generation of violin virtuosos between that of Biber, Walther, Corelli and Torelli on the one hand and that of Nardini, Gaviniès, Lolli and Pugnani on the other.

According to John Hawkins and Charles Burney, who both knew him personally, Geminiani learned the violin under Carlo Ambrogio Lonati and Corelli in Rome (where he also studied composition with Alessandro Scarlatti). Yet given the lack of documentary evidence, it may be more reasonable to assume that Geminiani's musical education took place within the family, as was customary in early modern Europe: his father Giuliano was in fact a violinist by profession, just as were Vivaldi's father (Giovanni Battista), Somis's father (Lorenzo Francesco) and Veracini's uncle (Antonio). In early eighteenth-century Italy the career prospects of violinist-composers were in any case rather limited. There was a small number of permanent positions for teachers and orchestral players at religious and lay institutions; alternatively one might attempt to pursue a career as an itinerant soloist. A further middle-course option was to settle in one of the thriving commercial cities of northern Europe and make a living out of a combination of activities: private teaching, performances at benefit concerts, composition and publication of instrumental and even vocal works. As Enrico Careri has argued in his extensive study of Geminiani's life and works (Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993)), Geminiani was particularly reluctant to rely upon salaried employment or patronage. In 1714 he thus moved to London, where for about two decades he was able to build an international reputation through his teaching and the publication of his Op. 1 violin sonatas and Opp. 2 and 3 concertos. (Nearly all his subsequent compositions, on the other hand, failed to gain public approval. This may be why Geminiani devoted the latter part of his life to writing books on musical performance and aesthetics, and to paying frequent and lengthy visits to Dublin, with other shorter trips to Italy, France and Holland.)

Scholarship on Geminiani is scanty. Before Careri's monograph, only a few articles and a doctoral dissertation dealt at any length with the composer. Rather, Geminiani's work was touched upon tangentially in studies of other, more researched figures (Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel) or, more prominently, in studies of eighteenth-century performing practices. When one turns to twentieth-century editions of Geminiani's music, the state of affairs improves perceptibly: the Sonate a violino, violone, e cembalo, Op. 1 (London, 1716; reprinted 1739), and the Sonates pour le violoncelle et basse continue, Op. 5 (Paris, 1746), have long since been available in a facsimile and in two modern editions; the Concerti grossi, Op. 3 (London, 1732), in modern score; the Sonate a violino e basso, Op. 4 (London, 1739), and the Pièces de clavecin (London, 1743) in facsimile editions. Geminiani's theoretical works have also been published several times, in facsimile as well as modern editions. The editorial and publishing project Francesco Geminiani: Opera Omnia is none the less likely to render current modern editions of Geminiani's music obsolete by the year 2012, when the series is due for completion concomitantly with the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the composer's death.

The Geminiani project is one of several ambitious initiatives recently launched by the Bolognese publishing house Ut Orpheus, alongside the ‘Opera Omnia’ of Luigi Boccherini and Muzio Clementi and the operatic series Riccardo Muti: Naples and Europe. Francesco Geminiani: Opera Omnia comprises nine volumes of string music (volumes 1–9), one volume each respectively for harpsichord (volume 10) and vocal music (volume 11), five volumes of theoretical writings (volumes 12–16) and a thematic catalogue of both authentic and spurious works (volume 17). Two online services are envisaged to complement the printed editions: a website with updated revisions and expansions of the thematic catalogue, and a second with addenda and corrigenda to the complete works. The volumes thus far published are numbers 5 (cello sonatas Op. 5 and Geminiani's own transcriptions for the violin) and 8 (the volume under review here); both are edited by Christopher Hogwood, who also acts as General Editor for the series. The present volume comprises eleven concertos in score format: six after Corelli's Opp. 1 and 3 (London, 1735); three from an anthology entitled Select Harmony (London, 1735); and two Unison Concertos (London, 1761). The complete performance material is also available from the publisher.

The volume is finely produced. In clarity as well as consistency it strikes a happy balance between so-called ‘scholarly’ and ‘practical’ editions, a fine response to Hogwood's observation concerning the ‘lack of availability of [Geminiani's] music in scrupulous modern editions designed for practical performance’ (<www.utorpheus.com/utorpheus/series.php?code=gce> (22 July 2011)). Modern notational conventions are followed throughout, except for double-length bars, key signatures and trills. Although the approach to emendations adopted claims to be conservative, there are in fact a small number of editorial accidentals in square brackets; in addition, figuring is supplied generously and emended too (except in Concerto 1 from Select Harmony), and the viola part is supplied and scoring suggested in square brackets in the Unison Concertos. Whereas dynamics are not editorially expanded, indications of concertino and ripieno parts are editorially aligned throughout. The Chronology and Introduction duplicate Careri's findings without adding to either Geminiani's biography or the historical background to his concertos. Richard Maunder's Appendix on performance also sums up the author's research on performing forces in eighteenth-century concertos (The Scoring of Baroque Concertos (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004)), but somewhat oddly refrains from making any observation on such fundamental issues as ornamentation, rhythmic alteration, articulation and pitch. (However, it must be noted that a Table of Ornaments precedes the score, giving notated realizations of the symbols used by Geminiani; these are editorially derived from the composer's own instructions as found in A Treatise of Good Taste in the Art of Musick (London, 1749) and The Art of Playing on the Violin (London, 1751).) The Critical Commentary is rather more informative and, indeed, extremely clear in layout and accurate in content. There are, in addition, fifteen facsimiles from the original London editions of the works.

The complete works of Francesco Geminiani is a valuable musicological enterprise which it is hoped will soon allow scholars and performers alike to assess the extent of the composer's contribution to eighteenth-century musical culture, especially as his most important works – the concertos Opp. 2, 3 and 7 – have thus far not enjoyed a modern critical edition. It is therefore regrettable that the second volume of the series to appear should have been largely devoted to material that has been available since 1987 as an appendix to the first volume of Corelli's collected edition (‘Geminianis Concerto grosso-Bearbeitungen von sechs Sonaten aus Opus I und III’, in Arcangelo Corelli: Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe der musikalischen Werke, i: Sonate da chiesa, Opus I und III, ed. Max Lütolf (Laaber: Laaber, 1987), 225–314). Although the Geminiani volume does improve upon the Corelli volume, one would like to have seen the more original and neglected compositions of Geminiani brought to the attention of the wider musical community sooner rather than later.

Furthermore, the layout of the score in the Corelli–Geminiani concertos is not entirely convincing. A compressed score with concertino and ripieno violin parts contracted into a single part, and ‘Tutti’ and ‘Soli’ markings to indicate who is to play what at any given time, would have probably been a better solution, especially as the names of the original parts and their relationship to the staves of the editorial score are not stated clearly in the introductory note and can only be inferred from the list of sources in the critical commentary. Not only would such a score have been far easier to read, but it would also have highlighted the main difference between Corelli's original compositions on the one hand and Geminiani's reworking of them on the other. Corelli's Op. 1 and Op. 3 sonatas are in fact scored a3, that is for two trebles and one melodic bass instrument, with a thoroughbass part for the organ; Geminiani's concertos derived from these sonatas are instead scored a4, that is for two trebles, a tenor and a melodic bass instrument, with two additional treble parts and a thoroughbass part for (presumably) the harpsichord and double bass. Notwithstanding the historical significance of Geminiani's adaptations of Corelli's trios for performance by a larger ensemble, Geminiani's own works are doubtless the more interesting objects of study and performance. The three beautiful concertos from Select Harmony edited in the present volume make this abundantly clear.