Charles Avison (1709/10-1770)
Concertos Op. 3 and Op. 4
The English city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne was not only
a bustling hub of industry and commerce during the
eighteenth century, but also a place for music. The
heavy traffic of ships travelling up and down the river
Tyne might just as easily be carrying a harpsichord as a
shipment of coal or dry goods, because Newcastle was
the home of Charles Avison, England’s greatest
composer of orchestral concertos.
Avison was baptized in Newcastle on 16th
February 1709 (or 1710, according to some scholars).
He received his early training from his father and then
set out for London at the tender age of fifteen to further
his education and career. There he probably first met
and studied with the great Italian violinist Francesco
Geminiani, who had moved to England in 1714. Avison
returned to Newcastle in 1735, assuming the post of
organist at St John the Baptist’s Church and instituting
a series of subscription concerts that would eventually
became the Newcastle Musical Society. In 1736 Avison
was appointed organist at the city’s most important
church, St Nicholas, a position he would also hold until
his death in Newcastle on 9th or 10th May 1770.
Avison was also a provocative writer and critic,
and tended to express his highly individual opinions
with passion. He threw down the gauntlet with
particular force in his 1752 treatise An Essay on
Musical Expression, where he claimed that
‘expression’ was more important than following the
formal rules of composition. He also implied that
Geminiani was a better composer than that English
icon, George Frideric Handel, writing that ‘the greatest
in instrumental Music…[was] Geminiani, whose
Elegance and Spirit of Composition ought to have been
much more our Pattern’. The ensuing storm of protest
did not faze Avison, who remained steadfast in his
admiration of the Italian composer. Geminiani, for his
part, reciprocated with equally complimentary words
about his distinguished English protégé. For example,
after visiting Avison in 1760 to hear his thirteen-year
old son Edward play, Geminiani wrote ‘My friend, I
love all your productions. You are my heir. This boy
will be yours… to raise up geniuses like him is the only
way to perpetuate music.’
At the time of his death, Avison was recognized as
the leading musician of Northern England. The
obituary in the Newcastle Courant of 12th May 1770
acknowledged the esteem in which he was held, and
also remarked on Avison’s modest and attractive
personality: ‘His loss is greatly lamented by all that had
the pleasure of his acquaintance, for he was much
valued for the amiableness of his private character as
admired for his skill in the profession, and for his
excellent compositions.’
Avison composed chamber music, accompanied
keyboard sonatas and vocal works, but the largest part
of his compositional output consists of the more than
fifty orchestral concertos. Not surprisingly, Avison’s
model for these works was the Italian concerto grosso
of Arcangelo Corelli and Geminiani. These two
composers enjoyed an enduring popularity in England
throughout the eighteenth century, especially Corelli.
The English music historian Charles Burney observed
in 1789 that ‘The Concertos of Corellis [sic] seem to
have withstood all the attacks of time and fashion …
they preclude criticism and make us forget that there is
any other music of the same kind existing’. Avison
agreed, and made it clear what he thought about current
fashions: ‘I have also endeavored to avoid the rapid
style of Composition now in vogue … Its Reign will
not be of long continuance … If any Person doubt the
Force of this Truth … Let him attend to a Concerto of
Corelli or Geminiani.’
Avison’s concertos of Opus 3 and Opus 4 are
written in this Italian concerto grosso style, in which a
string orchestra is divided into two groups, the
concertino (solo) and ripieno (the other members of the
orchestra). This arrangement allows for dramatic
contrast between the two sections, while providing the
solo violinist with ample opportunities for virtuosic
display. Avison’s concerti grossi also made it possible
for ‘gentlemen’ musicians to play in the less demanding
ripieno sections. One of these gentlemen members was
the astronomer William Herschel, the discoverer of the
planet Uranus.
Although Avison generally favoured the fourmovement
slow-fast-slow-fast pattern of the standard
concerto grosso in most of his works in this genre, the
concertos on this recording find Avison in an
experimental mood. Most noteworthy is Avison’s
departure from the four-movement standard. Op. 3,
No. 4, for example, features five movements, the second
slow movement being divided into two sections. Opus 4
is even more adventurous: the third concerto has nine
movements and Nos. 4 and 5 have five independent
sections. Op. 4, No. 6 uses a grand total of ten
movements, including two fugues that recall the earlier
seventeenth-century style. Avison also experiments
with the harmonic language in these two sets. For
example, the composer uses tonalities for some second
slow movements that depart from the customary
relative major/minor or dominant harmony, as for
example in Op. 3, No. 6 and Op. 4, No. 8, and one
concerto, Op. 4, No. 4, never returns to the tonic (home)
key at all.
Opus 3 was published in 1751. The lengthy Preface,
which Avison included in almost all of his
compositions, contains valuable information on
performance practices, including the number of
instruments needed to balance the concertino and
ripieno, and the correct manner of playing the
harpsichord continuo. Avison also tells us here that he
avoided using wind instruments because ‘these are also
so different in their Tone and Register from those of the
Stringed Kind, besides the irremediable Disagreement
of their rising in their Pitch, while the other are probably
falling’. In other words, they were always out of tune.
Opus 4 appeared in 1755 with a dedication to Lady
Milbanke, Avison’s harpsichord student and patron.
From this dedication we learn that these works were
performed before being published: ‘It was Your
Ladyships Approbation of these Pieces in their detached
state and the Singular Advantage they gained from your
graceful Performance which first induced me to think of
this Publication.’
After his experiments with Opus 3 and Opus 4,
Avison returned to the more conventional Italian
concerto grosso model for his subsequent concerto
publications, Op. 6, Op. 9 and Op. 10. Nevertheless, the
concertos on this recording remained among Avison’s
most enduring works. He would later republish them,
along with a revised version of Opus 6, in his 1758
collection Twenty Six Concertos, and they continued to
be performed after the composer’s death. The Concerto
Op. 4, No. 4 was particularly popular with the Concert
of Ancient Music, appearing regularly on their
programmes between 1785 and 1812.
Mark Kroll