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Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin BWV 1001-1006
General Discussions - Part 2 |
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Continue from Part 1 |
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Chamber Music: Unaccompanied Violin Solo Sonatas/Partitas |
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William Hoffmasn wrote (October 6, 2019):
The year 1720 was a watershed time for Bach as Capellmeister of chamber music at Cöthen in the service of Prince Leopold. Above all, he compiled a set of six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, BWV 1001-1006. Bach titled them "Sei Solo a Violino senza Basso accompagnato" (Six Solos for Violin Without Bass Accompaniment) on the title page of his autograph score (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001955). In his handwriting, he also designated this collection as "Libro Promo" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatas_and_Partitas_for_Solo_Violin_(Bach): See "Title page of the autograph), suggesting that this was the first of a planned series of collections of similar music. Various Bach scholars have suggested that the designation was the beginning of three books of solo (unaccompanied) works with "Libro Secondo" for the Six Unaccompanied Suites for Violoncello, BWV 1007-1012 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello_Suites_(Bach), https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001200), and "Libro Terzo" for the Partita in A Minor for Solo Flute, BWV 1013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partita_in_A_minor_for_solo_flute_(Bach), the first of a presumed collection for flute. Bach also compiled a series of music for solo lute or keyboard Lautenwerk, BWV 995-1000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Johann_Sebastian_Bach#BWV_Chapter_9). Bach's chamber music is classified in different ways in various sources while the Bach Cantata Website list this music as "Solo Instrument, BWV 995-1013" (lute, violin, cello, flute) with recording reviews, followed by "Chamber Music BWV 1014-1040" with recording reviews and discussion (http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/index.htm#Solo).
Bach began in 1720 with the Clavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach on January 22, his oldest son, age 9. "Most of the pieces included are better known as parts of The Well-Tempered Clavier WTC, Book 1] and the Inventions and Sinfonias," says Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavierbüchlein_für_Wilhelm_Friedemann_Bach). This was a very creative period for Bach, who had mastered the Italian concerto form and cantata style when appointed concertmaster in 1714 at Weimar and began composing instrumental concertos, sonatas, and suites, as well as church year cantatas.1 The Solo Violin collection autograph manuscript paper "is unique in Bach's works," says David Ledbetter,2 made in Bohemia near Carlsbad where Bach spent the early summer of 1720, from 25 May to c.7 June when he returned to find his wife, Maria Barbara, buried. "In fact Bach covers in the Sei Solo virtually all the ground he was subsequently to cover in a whole series of keyboard works, begun about 1720," says Lebbetter (Ibid.: 10). These included the two-part Inventions, three-part Sinfonias, the French Suites, and the WTC, Book 1. During this period in Cöthen Bach compositionally was creating instrumental works emphasizing the fugue and the dance forms.
Symbolic, Sacred References
The suggestion that "Sei Solo" in the Violin Solos could translate as "you are alone" "is an intentional reference to the recent sudden death of his wife," says Wikipedia (Ibid.) and has lead to all manner of suggestions that the Violin Solos represent social and theological designs3 (first explored in the Weimar sacred cantatas as musical sermons), as most recently studied in Benjamin Shute's monograph.4 Within a year after the composition of the Violin Solos, Bach completed and dedicated his Brandenburg Concerti" to the Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg on 24 March 1721, music that may have symbolic social and religious meaning, says Michael Marssen in a recent New York Times article.5 In the Violin Solos, in particular, the D Minor Partita, BWV 1004, and its great "Chaconne," represents a memorial to Bach's late wife (https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/69xm/).
Initially in Cöthen, Bach explored both the fugue form in his Solo Violin Sonatas as well as dance forms in the Partitas. He would continue to compose fugues throughout his life and publish studies such as Art of Fugue, and Musical Offering. In Leipzig, Bach used the Cöthen keyboard collections as compositional and pedagogical studies while introducing his students to the world of the Six Solo Violin works and the Six Cello Suites. In the 1720s, three versions of the Solo Violin collection were copied in Leipzig: Anna Magdalena, 1727-31, made from the autograph, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001199); Johann Peter Kellner, 1726 (omits BWV 1002), from early sources (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00025378), and two unknown copyists, from early Weimar versions of 1714 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001198). Meanwhile, the same sources made companion copies of the Solo Cello Suites: Anna Magdalena, 1727-1731 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001200), possibly from an early version (no autograph fair copy extant), and Kellner, dated 1726 (Ibid.), while there is a version from copyists of the Emanuel Bach Berlin circle, before 1768 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001281).
Popular Movements
Besides the "Chaconne" from the Solo Violin Partita, BWV 1004, which yielded numerous transcriptions for various instruments (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partita_for_Violin_No._2_(Bach): "Transcriptions Ciaccona"),6 there are other notable movements: the "Preludio" opening the Partita No. 3, BWV 1006, adapted for lute and for orchestra as sinfonia opening Cantata 29, 7 and the "Fugue" (No. 2) from Sonata No. 3 in C Major (BWV 1005), based on the chorale tune "Komm Heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6bBP7pqsSg). In both the "Chaconne" and the "Fugue" Bach uses multiple stops to "achieve keyboard-like counterpoint" and polyphonic melody — "his magical way of implying multiple voices with a single line," says Bruce Adolphe.8 Other well-known movements include the improvisatory G-minor Adagio, substantial Fugue and Siciliana (BWV 1001), the Partita dance suite (BWV 1002), and the substantial Sonata in A minor (BWV 1003). "The sonatas and partitas are rightly the well-spring of an entire repertoire, and its little wonder that violinists and music lovers return to these matchless wonders again and again, finding new depth and nuance with each encounter," says Robert Kirzinger.
The Bach Revival started at the beginning of the 19th century and the Violin Solos were first published in 1802 by Nikolaus Simrock in Bonn with the fcomplete edition of Ferdinand David published in 1843 (https://www.naxos.com/mainsite/blurbs_reviews.asp?item_code=8.557563-64&catNum=557563&filetype=About%20this%20Recording&language=English). "Mendelssohn and Schumann wrote piano accompaniments to the solo violin and cello works," says Adolphe (Ibid.: 6). The Schumann Peters edition is recorded at http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=32322. The "Chaconne" became the most transcribed work of Bach, particularly on the piano (https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/5142/). Joseph Joachim (1831-1907, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Joachim) brought the Violin Solos to public attention and movements entered the repertory (https://www.jstor.org/stable/41640135?seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents) with Joachim's edition (1908, https://www.sharmusic.com/Sheet-Music/Violin/Unaccompanied/Bach-JS---6-Sonatas-and-Partitas-BWV-1001-1006---Violin-solo---edited-by-Joseph-Joachim-and-Andreas-Moser---International-Music-Company.axd), based on the autograph.
Genesis, Performers
The genesis of the Violin Solos remains speculative but it appears that the earliest versions may have begun in 1713-14 in Weimar with the G-minor sonata (BWV 1001) which in its fugue (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EM6t3iHK1Y) has similarities to the G-minor Fugue for Violin and continuo (BWV 1026, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWcbOdKBkso), "surviving in a copy from ca .1714," observes Shute (Ibid.: xxivf). The D-minor Partita (BWV 1004, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KaYzgofHjc) may have been composed at the same time. Three years later in Cöthen c.1717-1718 Bach completed the B-minor Partita (BWV 1002, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ikXfRbYAsU) and the A-minor sonata (BWV 1003, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPSH5Hut9Ug). The E-major Partita (BWV 1006, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tjl07RmEQg) dates to 1719 while the C-major sonata (BWV 1005, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUf4TfsVYho) was completed by 1720. The Kellner 1726 copy of the Violin Solos "could suggest he was copying from a score that represented a phase in the construction of the Sei Solo in which Bach was in the process adding and subtracting bars to achieve the proportions he desired," says Shute (Ibid.: xxv), referring to Ruth Tatlow's Bach's Numbers: Compositional Proportion and Significance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015: 144). As to who may have performed these works, besides Bach, the possibilities include Joseph Spiess, the virtuoso violinist and Bach's concertmaster at Cöthen; Bach's friend Johann Georg Pisendel (1688-1755, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Georg_Pisendel), and Bach Weimar student Philipp David Krauter (1690-1741, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Krauter-Philipp-David.htm).
FOOTNOTES
1 See Pieter Dirksen, "The Background to Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto," The Harpsichord and its Repertoire (Utrecht, 1992: 157-185), https://www.academia.edu/7956045/The_Background_to_Bachs_Fifth_Brandenburg_Concerto?email_work_card=thumbnail.
2 David Ledbetter, Unaccompanied Bach: Performing the Solo Works (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009: 4), https://academic.oup.com/ml/article/93/2/234/1015688.
3 See Dorottya Fabian, A Musicology of Performance: Theory and Method Based on Bach's Solos for Violin (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015), https://web-a-ebscohost-com.libproxy.unm.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=b2bd33fe-c10a-4980-a749-19aaf254f1f0%40sdc-v-sessmgr01&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#AN=1068916&db=nlebk; see Footnote 25, https://books.google.fi/books?id=uwFgCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=%22sei%20solo%22&f=false)
4 Benjamin Shute, Sei Solo: Symbolium? The Theology of J. S. Bach's Solo Violin Works (Eugene OR: Pickwick Publications, 2016); review, http://earlymusicreview.com/ben-shute-sei-solo-symbolum/.
5 Michael Marissen, "There's More Religion Than You Think in Bach's 'Brandenburgs,' New York Times, December 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/arts/music/bach-brandenburg-concertos.html; also see Marissen, The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unm/reader.action?docID=581623.
6 Bach "Chaconne" transcriptions, https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ACYBGNTcKR4DH16l9Uuekf4X35PPNcP_Tg%3A1571087225114&ei=eeOkXavKBov0-gTImK3wBg&q=Bach+Chaconne+YouTube&oq=Bach+Chaconne+YouTube&gs_l=psy-ab.12..0j0i22i30l9.1388.14877..17157...1.2..0.166.3385.0j26......0....1..gws-wiz.....10..0i71j35i39j0i131j0i67j35i362i39j0i131i273j0i273j0i20i263j0i131i67j0i10.fyh5VhYVXH4&ved=0ahUKEwjr6tr_05zlAhULup4KHUhMC24Q4dUDCAo).
7 Bach "Preludio" transcriptions, https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=ACYBGNSrhYBsO3r62rD_TEeEEPEt2tGVMA%3A1571087398622&ei=JuSkXZHIJdfT-wSYuIjoCg&q=Bach+Preludio%2C+BWV+1006+YouTube&oq=Bach+Preludio%2C+BWV+1006+YouTube&gs_l=psy-ab.12...59149.62605..65193...0.2..0.150.1345.0j10......0....1..gws-wiz.......0i71j35i39j0i8i30j0i8i13i30.2Gej2t5DHtE&ved=0ahUKEwiR87jS1JzlAhXX6Z4KHRgcAq0Q4dUDCAo; also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU35byLR7yA.
8 Bruce Adolphe, liner notes, "Hillary Hahn Plays Bach," BWV 1004-06 (New York: Sony Classical, 1997: 8); http://bach-cantatas.com/N/Solo-Violin-Hahn[Schwartz].htm, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KaYzgofHjc. Hahn recently (2018) recorded the remaining three Violin Solo works, BWV 1001-1003 (https://open.spotify.com/album/2ot197WiXh41pOZaY726OZ), http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2274663, liner notes by Robert Kirzinger. |
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