(18) Bach’s Violin Sonatas
Foto-Copyright:
Henner Fritzsche, Köthen (Anhalt)
Veranstaltungsdetails
Artists Midori Seiler Baroque violinChristian Rieger harpsichord Programme Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Veranstaltungsdetails
Artists
Midori Seiler Baroque violin
Christian Rieger harpsichord
Programme
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Sonata in E minor for Violin and Basso continuo, BWV 1023
Praeludium – Adagio ma non tanto – Allemande – Gigue
Sonata in G major for Violin and Basso continuo, BWV 1021
Adagio – Vivace – Largo – Presto
Suite in A major for Violin and Obbligato Harpsichord, BWV 1025
Transcription of a lute composition by Silvius Leopold Weiss
Fantasia – Courante – Entrée – Rondeau – Sarabande – Menuett – Allegro
Description
Most of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions were passed down to posterity in manuscript form, as the Thomaskantor had only a small number of his works printed during his lifetime. Many of these manuscripts, including the majority of the cantatas and Passions, have survived in autograph form or were prepared by copyists from Bach’s immediate circle, making their authenticity and often even their date of composition clearly ascertainable. Matters become more difficult, however, with compositions that survive only in later copies and whose attribution was therefore often made decades after Bach’s death; these include, for example, many organ works and pieces of chamber music. In cases of doubt, authenticity must be assessed on stylistic grounds, although definitive certainty cannot always be achieved. Thus, the actual authors of a number of compositions long attributed to the Thomaskantor have since been identified through the discovery of new sources, while debates over the authenticity of other works attributed to Bach continue.
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The Sonata in E minor (BWV 1023) has not survived in autograph form, but in a contemporary copy made by a Dresden court copyist. In its original version, the work was intended for violin and basso continuo, suggesting that it may have been commissioned by the Dresden court violinist Johann Pisendel, whom Bach first met in Weimar in 1709. The most striking feature of the sonata is the heterogeneity of its individual movements: the opening movement consists of continuous semiquaver motion over a pedal point, the second is characterised by expressive chromaticism, while the two concluding movements have a pronounced dance character. The composition thus appears as a hybrid between sonata and suite.
The Trio in A major (BWV 1025) is certainly by Johann Sebastian Bach, although it is an arrangement of a sonata by the Dresden court lutenist Silvius Leopold Weiss. The two musicians remained close friends throughout their lives; several meetings are documented, including one in Leipzig in 1739, where Weiss and another Dresden musician “etliche mal bey uns haben hören laßen.” Around this time, Bach reworked Weiss’s Sonata No. 47 in A major into a trio for violin and harpsichord, adding another contrapuntal voice to the original lute part.
The Sonata in G major for violin and basso continuo (BWV 1021), meanwhile, follows the conventional movement pattern of the Corellian sonata da chiesa. The work also offers further interesting insights, as it belongs to a group of three compositions whose bass parts are identical and which differ only in the treatment of their solo parts. While the authorship of the other two works (BWV 1022 and 1038) in this group of three remains unresolved, the Sonata in G major can be attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach without doubt. He apparently composed the work around 1732/33 for the young Count Heinrich Abraham von Boineburg, who is known to have been a private pupil of the Leipzig Thomaskantor at the time.
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