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Duncan Druce, Violin concertos, arias and sextets, Early Music, Volume 42, Issue 1, February 2014, Pages 136–138, https://doi.org/10.1093/em/cau004
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These volumes from A-R Editions are concerned with very different aspects of music in the second half of the 18th century, and each is interesting in a different way.
Joseph Riepel (1709–82) has attracted attention chiefly as a music theorist; his Anfangsgründe zur musicalischen Setzkunst (Fundamentals of musical composition), published between 1752 and 1768, teaches the student how to invent themes, combine them into balanced phrases, and combine these into well-structured movements. Along with minuets and symphonic movements he discusses in detail how concertos should be written—how the thematic material should be distributed, and what tonal schemes should be followed. And in the Anfangsgründe he voices his plan to publish six small concertos as models. In the event only three concertos appeared (Regensburg 1756, reprinted with some alterations in Paris in 1767–8). These, along with the only other Riepel violin concerto to survive, are the basis of this edition. The last-named work, preserved in manuscript, is more fully scored, with oboes, bassoons and horns (or trumpets) complementing the string band; the other three are scored for strings alone, except that manuscript sources of the first and third concertos include optional oboe parts, not included in this edition.
