Bach: Sonate a cembalo obligato e traversiere solo

Featuring

Laura Pontecorvo
Rinaldo Alessandrini
Johann Sebastian Bach

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Composer Biography

In 1736, Johann Sebastian Bach was granted the title of Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Court Composer, which gave him greater autonomy from his employers at the church of Saint Thomas.

Interpretation

The performers on this album chose to reconstruct the incomplete first movement of Sonata BWV 1032, using a version made by Rinaldo Alessandrini, one of the performers.

Historical Context

The transverse flute gained prominence in Dresden, the first German court to consider it a virtuoso instrument, influencing Bach's increased composition for it from the late 1720s.

Instruments

The recording uses a copy of a 'Buffardin Le Fils' transverse flute, an instrument with unique timbre and articulation characteristics, discovered on eBay in 2015.

Compositional Technique

The Sonata BWV 1032 is incomplete, with its first movement stopping at measure 62, likely due to the lower part of the manuscript page being cut off by Bach himself.

Composition History

The year 1736 was also when Bach wrote his only two autograph sonatas for transverse flute and obbligato harpsichord: BWV 1030 in B minor and BWV 1032 in A major.

Compositional Technique

Bach's compositional method often involved elaborating on pre-existing material, challenging the modern idea of a single, definitive original version.