- This list grew from a need to know, e.g. in a record shop, whether a new release of music by S.L. Weiss contained pieces already recorded or not. I have now decided to call this endeavour a "Catalogue raisonné", because I have tried to combine a work-list with a survey of what has been put on disc using the instrument for which the music was written. [For the time being at least, guitar trancriptions have been left out.] But I lay no claim to completeness, and will welcome any additional information readers may be able to provide. What is presented here is the work of a lover of the lute and of Weiss in particular, not of a trained musicologist.
SW= Silvius Leopold Weiss. Sämtliche Werke für Laute in Tabulatur und Übertragung / Complete Works for Lute in Tablature and Transcription.
Vols. I-IV: The London Manuscript, ed. D.A. Smith. Frankfurt, Peters, 1983-1990.
Vols. V-VIII: The Dresden Manuscript, ed. T. Crawford & D. Kirsch. Kassel, Baerenreiter, 2004- .
- The 'Catalogue raisonné' proper falls into two parts: a work-list with references to recordings, and a listing of known discs with reference to the works recorded.
- Following the SW, the term 'Sonata' is employed throughout. The term 'Suite' is reserved for personal assemblages of movements by performers (now less common than in the 70s & 80s). The term used on the disc itself, if different from 'S(u)onata', is cited between square brackets after the disc reference.
- Solo sonatas as numbered in SW : 1-32 (London), 33-52 (Dresden). and provisionally numbered solo sonatas (with thanks to Tim Crawford): only recorded sonatas are listed here.
- Hybrid suites made up of movements from different sonatas by the performer.
- Miscellaneous solo pieces as numbered in SW [they are asterisked (e.g. 1*): 1*-28* (London), 29*-33* (Dresden) and provisionally numbered pieces.
- Ensemble works as numbered in SW.
- In the last Section the known recordings are listed in alphabetical order of performer, with cross-reference to the work-list.
- Movement names have been uniformized; variant orthographies in the source(s) - aside from simple abbreviations - are given in brackets.
- Movements not directly associated with a sonata in the source(s) or SW - e.g. an added Prelude - are italicized and numbered distinctively. Sonatas with more than one such 'foreign' movement listed separately in Section IIc ('hybrid suites').
- This column gives the piece's number in Smith's "Index of Incicpits" (see above).
- Gives the location of the main source(s): L = London, D = Dresden, M = Moscow, V = Vienna, W = Warsaw, etc. (see Smith or the editor's commentary in SW for details).
- Volume and page numbers of the SW where the music is found in staff notation.
- Movements (and the order in which they are played): 'complete' recordings of sonatas are listed first, in alphabetical order of performer; thereafter recordings of separate movements.
- Name of performer; an (r) after the performer's name indicates a 'recital' disc, i.e. one that also contains music by other composers than Weiss.
- (Month and) year of recording; the year of release is given in parentheses if different from that of recording or if the latter is not known.
- Format (CD or LP), label name, and disc reference. In the case of multiple-disc sets, the relevant disc, and for LPs the relevant side ('a' or 'b'), is indicated in parentheses after the catalogue number. If both formats are attested, the CD reference takes precedence; details of the LP will be found in footnote in Section VI.
Recordings I have not (yet) heard personally are marked by a bold asterisk (*).
- to Vivien Taylor (Head, W.D.Jordan Special Collections & Music Library of Queen's University, Kingston (Ontario), Canada), for providing a tape of Weiss items recorded by Ernie Hills and Aaron Skitri, which are otherwise no longer available.
- Intavolatura GLCD 4001 (1986) ["Intavolatura de liuto, tiorba e di chitarrone"]: said to contain a prelude & fuga (7*?) in d, played by Olav Strandberg.
- The Chilean lutenist, Miguel Angel Aldunce González, who now lives in Barcelona, has recorded some Weiss, of which I have heard (and catalogued) vol. 2. I am still searching for vol. 1.