Six Sonatas for Violin and Obbligato Harpsichord 1 – BWV 1014-1016

Twenty-five years after Johann Sebastian Bach’s death his son Carl Philipp Emanuel praised his father’s trio sonatas, stating that “still today they sound great, even though they are older than fifty years.” What a compliment about works of a genre that was notoriously fast to adapt to new styles and fashions in the eighteenth century! Still today, Bach’s sonatas are considered masterpieces of Baroque counterpoint. Yet they might surprise anyone who expects them to feature the usual combination of two flutes or violins and figured bass. As in all of Bach’s trio sonatas (except those for solo organ), there is only one melody instrument, as two of the three voices are played by the two hands of the obbligato harpsichord.

The sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord BWV 1014-1016 are a single sonata cycle with a remarkable expressive range: The melancholic, even lamenting sonorities of the first and fourth sonatas are contrasted by the serenity of the second or the virtuosity of the third sonata.

This revised edition is based on manuscript copies by several of Bach’s pupils, as well as on the Urtext of the “New Bach Edition”. The edition comprises a harpsichord score, a part for a bass string instrument as well as both an Urtext violin part and a second violin part, annotated with fingering and bowing along with notes on performance practice. A detailed Preface (Ger/Eng) and a Critical Commentary (Ger/Eng) are also included.