Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-1019

Johann Sebastian Bach: Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard, BWV 1014-1019

BACH AND THE VIOLIN

Johann Sebastian Bach was employed as a church musician for most of his life, and was particularly celebrated as a VIRTUOSO organist. The great body of organ works, as well as the massive achievement of the WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER and the other keyboard works have somewhat obscured our picture of Bach, the string player. The violin was Bach’s first instrument, taught him as a small boy by his father. While he went on to concentrate his energies upon the organ and harpsichord, an argument can be made that a number of significant influences on Bach’s music for those instruments can be traced to his intimate knowledge of string instruments. Ironically enough, when Bach prepared his concertos for solo keyboard and orchestra in the 1730s (adapted from violin concertos composed in the 1720s) the result was to launch a new kind of composition, which would eventually lead to the piano concertos of Mozart, Beethoven and the Romantic age.

Most of Bach’s instrumental works date from the period spent at Cothen as court composer (1717-23), when the composer was spared the usual grind of duties as church musician which dominated most of his working life. Since the court was Calvinist (with little call for Bach’s services in supplying church music), the composer’s attention was directed toward chamber music, orchestral music and compositions for solo harpsichord---most of the suites, the Brandenburg Concertos and concertos for solo violin, works for flute, lute, viola da gamba, violin and cello date from this period.

Dating from the Cothen years are Bach’s best-known compositions for violin, the celebrated six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin---the meat and drink of every serious-minded (and courageous!) violinist. So esteemed were they that, quixotically , Schumann and Mendelssohn provided piano accompaniments for the purpose of making them more acceptable to 19^th century tastes during the first flush of the Bach Revival. How odd that there should exist six OTHER sonatas for violin with Bach’s OWN accompaniments (those to be heard in today’s concert) which even today remain less widely known than their unaccompanied brothers.

The present six sonatas in question are composed with harpsichord OBLIGATO, meaning (unlike the popular notion of the word “obligato”) that all the music played by the keyboard instrument is written out, largely excluding the common Baroque practice of embellishing the keyboard part in an improvisatory manner. This means that every note heard was set down by Bach himself, resulting in a tightly-woven music texture, remarkable for its contrapuntal ingenuity and harmonic richness. With the single exception of the opening movement of the 5^th Sonata, the harpsichord plays two parts, which added to the violin part produces a three-part texture. Following the pattern established by late 17^th century Italian composers (notably Arcangelo Corelli), Bach’s sonatas (with the exception of No. 6) comprise four movements, alternating between slow/fast/slow/fast contrasts of tempo.

In this program Darwyn Apple pays tribute to the late Joseph Knitzer, his teacher and mentor at the Eastman School of Music, and later at the University of Michigan. Despite suffering the terrible pain of advanced cancer, Knitzer performed the Six Bach Accompanied Sonatas on his farewell concert, XXXXX DATE

[Although until recently these sonatas were heard with the accompaniment of the modern piano, nowadays harpsichord accompaniment has become common practice. In this concert Mr. Apple performs Nos. 1, 6, and 4 with harpsichord, followed by Nos. 2, 5 and 3 with piano---providing an interesting opportunity to compare the “ancient” approach with the “modern.”

THE SONATAS

Baroque composers traditionally favoured the “violin keys” of G-D-A-E, which were grounded in the open strings of the instrument. Three of the six sonatas in this set (Nos. 2, 3 and 6) follow this custom, written in A Major, E Major and G Major respectively. Curiously, Bach turned to the brightest of the open-string tonalities, D Major, for a single movement only, in the First Sonata (set in D Major’s related key of B Minor.) For the remaining minor-key sonatas Bach turned to the darker “flat key” tonalities of C Minor and F Minor (Sonatas 4 and 5.) Hearing these six compositions side by side conveys a strong impression that Bach found distinct coloration and personality in these contrasting tonalities, vividly expressing a vast range of emotions and musical images.

Sonata No. 1 in B minor opens with a long-breathing, sustained melody without parallel in the set of six sonatas. A single hovering note swells into a rhapsodic songful flow which is soon enriched with double-stops, reaching an impassioned conclusion. The second movement is sprightly and dancelike in character, with the right-hand of the keyboard in lively dialogue with the violin---a feature common to all the quicker movements in the sonatas. As is the case in all but the Sixth Sonata, the third movement is the reflective, expansively lyrical soul of the work. Here a richly detailed violin melody is unfolded above a calmly striding bassline. The final movement is a “binary” piece (written in two sections, each repeated), which jumps into action with a pounding Vivaldi-like figure in the violin, surging ahead with impassioned energy .

Sonata No. 6 in G Major is the “maverick” among this set of sonatas. Laid out in five movements instead if the usual four, the work opens not with a introductory slow movement, but springs into action with a dashing, athletic ALLEGRO, overflowing with high spirits and brilliant byplay between violin and keyboard. The second movement (here slow instead quick) is a brief interlude, brimming with pathos, acting as a bridge to a fast third movement---for keyboard ALONE! The two instruments are then reunited to round things out with a jig-like fifth movement, a bit reminiscent of the finale of Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, also written in G Major.

Sonata No. 4 in C Minor opens with a dark and deeply-felt introductory movement marked “SICILIANO,” suggesting the famous contralto aria, “Erbarme dich” from the Saint Matthew Passion. The mood of sadness is swept aside by a vigorous and forthright ALLEGRO, a complex fugal movement filled with contrapuntal ingenuity and vivid harmonic textures. The succeeding ADAGIO set in the relative major key of E-flat is one of the most profound movements of the entire six sonatas, notable for its consolatory tone, marked by sharp contrasts between FORTE and PIANO passages. The final movement is brisk and business-like at first, becoming ever friskier, with a charming hint of ragtime peeping through the Baroque fiddle-faddle.

Sonata No. 2 in A Major opens with a mellow, singing first movement of unusual sweetness and transparency (characteristic of both Bach and Mozart in music in A Major), followed by a fugue-like fast second movement which presses forward into a central episode of concerto-like brilliance and excitement before concluding with a return of the initial musical elements. The slow third movement is a strict canon between violin and the keyboard’s right hand, the left hand suggesting the sound of a lute or guitar in its softly murmuring accompaniment. The finale is a breezy, slightly “popular” sounding unwinding of polyphony, effortless and insouciant.

Sonata No. 5 in F Minor, by its very key (something of a rarity in Bach’s time) implies a darkness and disquiet unique among the six sonatas. The opening movement is unusual in its four-part writing, with imitative counterpoint in the keyboard, the violin with arching, extended phrases apparently independent of the keyboard, moving with great breadth and slowness. The second movement is a binary, fugal movement. The third movement has been described as “dependent almost entirely upon sonority for its cohesiveness,” consisting entirely of sustained double-stops in the violin against endlessly uncoiling arpeggiando figures in the keyboard. The finale is a jig-like, restless movement of great intensity and drive.

Sonata No. 3 in E Major is the best-loved and most familiar of the six sonatas, the one with perhaps the widest expressive range. The first movement is virtually an impressionistic piece, with reiterated harpsichord patterns firmly anchored to the ground, the violin circling and swooping in great arcs like a bird in flight. The second movement has a carefree, innocent air, laying out a folk-like tune with a trace of “London Bridge is falling down” about it, soon teased into contrapuntal activity. The slow third movement moves to the relative key of C-sharp minor, with a violin melody of questing, uneasy resignation spun out over a steady ground-bass accompaniment. The final movement is a brilliant virtuoso piece, with a complex intrusion of triplet rhythms (in the keyboard) pushing their way into the sixteenth-note bustle. The violin remains blithely unruffled by all this, and romps merrily on to a resounding conclusion.

For a concert by violinist Darwyn Apple