Bach: Sei suonate à cembalo certato è violoncello piccolo solo

Featuring

Mario Brunello
Roberto Loreggian
Francesco Galligioni
Johann Sebastian Bach

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Interpretation

The performers experimented with 'suonare all'ottava' (playing at the octave), a 16th and 17th-century practice on Italian organs, to create a kaleidoscope of timbres by mixing violoncello piccolo, harpsichord, and organ.

Compositional Technique

Johann Sebastian Bach's trio sonatas are praised for their perfect synthesis of linear counterpoint, euphonious harmony, and rich melody, a compositional ideal of the 18th century.

Compositional Technique

Bach innovatively used the harpsichord as an obbligato partner, allowing two players to create a three-voiced texture by having the right hand play an upper voice and the left hand the bass.

Compositional Technique

Bach's original Italian title for these sonatas, '…col basso per viola da gamba accompagnata, se piace' (…with the bass for accompanied viola da gamba, if it pleases), reveals a surprising flexibility in instrumentation.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Bach's trios satisfied his notion of perfect balance and harmony, believing it was achieved when all voices 'work wonderfully through each other'.

Instruments

The violoncello piccolo, a smaller variant of the violoncello, was first explicitly named and given a concertante role by Johann Sebastian Bach in nine cantatas in the 1720s.

Instruments

The violoncello piccolo used in this recording is a custom-made instrument by Filippo Fasser, modeled after a 17th-century five-string cello by Antonio and Girolamo Amati.