Johann Sebastian Bach Sonata in G Major Bwv 1027 a Viola da Gamba et Cembalo Obligato i) Adagio Performer: Andrea De Carlo. Fineline Classics.

There are multiple points of interest to this recording of Bach's sonatas BWV 1027-1029. There is the presence of the growing renown of Masato Suzuki, for instance, who, like his father Masaaki, is a formidable keyboard player as well as a choral conductor. There is the fact that these sonatas, plus a transcription of a melody from a church cantata, are top-notch Bach not terribly often played. The real news, however, is that they are played by France's Antoine Tamestit on a viola, not on the original viola da gamba.

The three gamba sonatas were written in the early 1740s. It remains unclear whether Johann Sebastian Bach intended to create a complete cycle (usually made up of six similar works), or whether the individual sonatas simply survived by happenstance and do not in fact form a unit.

Bach's viola da gamba sonatas with Lautenwerk! While the Sonata for Flute, Violin, and Passing Bass is an arranged version, the three Sonatas for Viola da gamba and Harpsichord that follow were composed around 1740, using Bach's own Lautenwerk (an instrument similar to a harpsichord, but with gut strings instead of metal strings), which belonged to Bach himself. Robert Hill used a replica of the lautenwerk to make this recording. The recording is a replica of the Lautenwerk, which allows for a greater sense of unity with the sound of Eckhard Weber's viola da gamba, and recreates the sound of the instrument at the time it was composed.

Tatty Theo and Carolyn Gibley, founder-cellist and harpsichordist of The Brook Street Band, perform the Sonatas for Viola da Gamba by J. S. and C. P. E. Bach, the first recording of these works to use a baroque cello. The Brook Street Band has easily earned its reputation as "the smartest new baroque band around (The Times). Among today's most notable Handel specialists, the group's founder, cellist , and harpsichordist, Carolyn Gibley, turn their attention for only the second time to the music of J. S. Bach as well as his son Carl Philip Emmanuel.