ExclusiveBach: Sonata in f minor for violin & harpsichord, BWV 1018 (Violin & Harpsichord)

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: Sonata in f minor for violin & harpsichord, BWV 1018 (Violin & Harpsichord). This beautiful piece was played by Josef Suk and Zuzana Ruzickova. It has common licence (Public Domain Mark 1.0 Universal), and is provided through musopen.org.

In 1774, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach remarked on his father’s sonatas for violin and harpsichord that they were still very enjoyable “despite being more than 50 years old”. In his day, it was definitely not taken for granted that music would still be played half a century later. As suggested by Carl Philipp’s remark, Bach probably wrote these sonatas in his time in Köthen, around 1717-1723. However, he kept on fine-tuning them his whole life: a clear sign that he, too, thought these works were a success.

Another thing that helped retain the attractiveness of these sonatas was their instrumentation. Instead of the trio sonatas for two violins and basso continuo that were prevalent at the beginning of the eighteenth century (e.g. Corelli), these sonatas were for keyboard instrument and one violin. So they also suited the times of Carl Philipp and later (take Mozart’s sonatas for piano and violin, for example). Yet in some movements, the older trio sonata form is still just under the surface. In the second movement of this sonata, you could also imagine the notes of the right hand of the keyboard being played on a second violin.

Carl Philipp wrote that his father’s sonatas contained “some adagios that people today would not be able to write more melodiously [sangbarer]”. And indeed, it is often the slower movements that move us most directly (both in Carl Philipp’s day and nowadays). This sonata is an example of that, as well. The first movement is actually a melancholic aria for violin – and it doesn’t get much more ‘singable’ than that.

Source: Bachvereinigung.nl

The video was filmed by Christian Schlegel in Habkern, Switzerland and was edited by Wenjing Ma.


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