Johan Helmich Roman was born in Stockholm in 1694 and by the
age of sixteen was a violinist in the Royal Opera Orchestra there. Wanting
to broaden his experiences he left for London when he was twenty-two and
began a series of ill-documented adventures of which conjecture and supposition
mostly take the place of reliable fact. It’s fairly certain that he was
a member of Handel’s opera orchestra at the King’s Theatre and eventually
became a founding member of the new operatic venture, The Royal Academy
of Musick. It was once claimed that he studied composition with Handel
though this now seems unlikely; Pepusch was a far more likely man and
through him meetings with the musical great and good who either lived
in or passed through the capital – Ariosti and Veracini among them. He
would though undoubtedly have seen Handel at work at close quarters and
in his capacity as violinist in the King’s Theatre band would have encountered
the composer’s harpsichord playing and direction at first hand. He returned
to Stockholm after five years in London assuming the position of Kapellmeister,
producing a steady stream of native music, and arranging that of his contemporaries
– Handel’s Brockes Passion notable among many. But his passion for travel
hadn’t left him and he returned to London in 1735/37 – meeting Handel
again – and spent an intervening year in Padua where he met Tartini. These
experiences clearly and obviously informed his musical sympathies and
allegiances and his importance in the promotion of continental trends
in music making in Stockholm can’t be underestimated. His radicalisation
and modernisation were pronounced but ill health and the death of his
second wife led to retirement in 1745 though he still managed to teach.
He died in 1758, a year before his old employer, Handel.
Roman’s Assaggi (Essays, Attempts) have assumed a honoured
if peripheral place in the literature of the eighteenth century and
it’s most interesting to encounter them. The period is not bursting
with works for solo violin and apart from the most obvious examples
– Bach, Telemann, Geminiani, Locatelli – Roman’s take their honoured
place in any such survey. They date probably from the late 1730s – maybe
even pinnable down to 1737 when, flushed with the glow of his recent
meeting with Tartini and the Italian school generally, he was newly
arrived back in Stockholm. What’s certain is that the folio containing
the Assaggi was printed in 1740 but recalled by Roman shortly afterwards.
He’d already written some solo etudes for violin a decade or so earlier
and was certainly no stranger to work for solo violin – indeed must
have been a notable practitioner of it. The Assaggi are generally in
four – sometimes three – movements and it’s plain that Roman wouldn’t
have been acquainted with Bach. Telemann’s Fantasies are more likely
to have been a model, with a spice of Tartini and Geminiani as well.
Roman is prodigal with melody and a profuse variety of cellular ideas
abound in the space of a single movement. He floods movements with restless
creativity and has a particular – perhaps somewhat twitchy – relationship
with formal structure. It’s very unusual to find any kind of cantilena
with him; instead he piles on incident upon incident, ideas and melodic
shapes brushing against each other in restless momentum. Sometimes indeed
the movements seem to groan beneath the weight of his teeming imagination.
The spirit of the dance courses through the Con spirito of the C Major
with a concluding movement that is every way ebullient and attractive.
Roman is an affecting but not cloying lyricist as witnessed by the Commodo
of the G Minor and something of a gentle humourist too; the concluding
Bourée doesn’t overstay its welcome – it’s over in under a minute.
The didactic utility of the pieces is a significant part of their value,
in addition to their intrinsic value as music. In that respect the Grave
opening movement of the C Minor is particularly instructive inasmuch
as the technical challenges are considerable and the light it sheds
on contemporary performance practice is sizeable. There is little point
of stylistic similarity with the Bach solo Sonatas and Partitas and
anyone coming to this repertoire anticipating revelations along those
lines will be disappointed. What they will find instead are rewards
of another kind. The air of teasing discursiveness for example that
runs through the Lento of the same C Minor, or the impressive sense
of direction in the Moderato of the A Major – the musical caesurae perfectly
judged – and judged well by the impressive soloist Tobias Ringborg.
Elsewhere Roman’s lack of linearity can be a hindrance but it’s part
of his compositional attitude to his own instrument and a definitive
stylistic feature. In the Andante of the G Minor (BeRi 314 – not the
three movement G Minor BeRi 320 mentioned earlier) – Roman comes closest
to the eloquence and linear simplicity encountered in Bach, the expressive
and ornamental trills deepening the mood and intensifying the depth
– I would recommend this movement as the paradigm of Roman’s interior
style, unvarnished by too much melodic clutter. The unsettled gravity
of the Larghetto of the final Assaggi, the B Minor, and the generous
ease of the Andante are delightful examples of his multiplicity of moods.
Soloist Ringborg is responsive and alert, occasionally
abrasive and plays on a contemporary fiddle, a Joachim Tielke of 1687
of which a couple of beautiful colour reproductions are included. I
know that there is a rival recording of the Assaggi by Peter Csaba on
Chamber Sound CSCD 94009, which was released in 1995. Don’t hesitate
to acquire Ringborg’s Assaggi though; you may find Roman superficially
cluttered and discursive but perseverance will bring rich rewards and
this cosmopolitan Swede will enrich your experience and understanding
of the eighteenth century violin world.
Jonathan Woolf
Tobias Ringborg, violin