ExclusiveBach: Violin Sonata no. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: Violin Sonata no. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003. This beautiful piece was played by Emil Telmanyi. It has common licence (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal), and is provided through musopen.org.

Bach makes the unviolinistic violinistic.

In contrast to some of his other compositions, Bach’s solo works for violin have always remained in use. They challenge violinists to get the best out of themselves and their instrument and to make the impossible possible – playing polyphony on your own. Other musicians have sometimes been envious of the set of six violin solos. Prompted by the notion of “the bigger the Bach repertoire, the better”, arrangements have been made for numerous other instruments. As early as 1758, for example, organist Jakob Adlung wrote that there were many “great works” among Bach’s unprinted music. Besides the big keyboard works, he refers to the “6 Sonaten und Partien ohne Bass”. In a footnote, he explains that “they are actually works for solo violin without bass, 3 sonatas and 3 partitas, but they are also well suited to playing on keyboard”. And that did indeed happen. There are keyboard arrangements of whole sonatas or partitas, and of separate movements. This Sonata no. 2 has also been arranged for keyboard (BWV 964).

But however effective and beautiful these versions are, when a sonata like this is performed by a violinist like Shunske Sato, the arrangements pale by comparison. Even the Fugue and the Andante sound completely natural here, despite their polyphony that is so difficult to play well. The Andante, in which the violinist accompanies himself with continually repeated notes below the melody, is a marvel of apparent straightforwardness. The spirited Allegro with its echo effects sometimes appears almost ironic in intent, and is cut out for the violin. Besides making the unviolinistic violinistic, Bach also embraces what the violin does best anyway.

Source: bachvereniging.nl

The video was captured by Simone Schlegel in Einigen, Switzerland and was edited by Wenjing Ma.




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