Bach 1027

These three sonatas - composed originally for the viola da gamba and harpsichord - are very musically-appealing compositions. And unlike previous Baroque cahmber-music tradition, the harpsichord is not relegated to mere continuo but projected into the spotlight as co-soloist - perhaps to showcase some of Bach's keyboard virtuosity. There are several fine period recordings of these works on viola da gamba and harpsichord (Savall, Peri, Crum, Wispelwey) or modern cello with harpsichord (Ma, Tortelier). But if your taste favors all modern instuments (cello, piano), then this circa-80's CD by the legendary Martha Argerich and Misha Maisky is the ticket.

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.

It is perhaps a truism that virtually all so-called great composers had a special preference for the viola as da braccio (on the arm, i.e. the modern instrument) or da gamba , a versatile instrument of the viol family that was a particular focus of Baroque composers. Indeed, the Sixth Brandenburg features pairs of both instruments, da braccio and da gamba, and what would the passions be without the solo work Bach includes for each? This may have been due to the fact that one of his employers, Duke Leopold of Saxony-Anhalt-Cöthen, liked to play it, but more likely Bach liked the instrument’s versatility and distinctive timbre.

Bach's sonatas for viola da gamba and keyboard, BWV 1027-1029, were partly adapted for other works, and there's nothing outrageous in itself about playing them on a cello. Indeed, the gamba was a fairly old-fashioned instrument by Bach's time, and the present performance may well be historically authentic, as the booklet contends. German cellist Nicolas Altstaedt tones down his instrument, so to speak, by using a low tuning intended to reproduce the gamba's more intimate quality. Nevertheless, this is an unusual reading, one that makes the music much darker and more dramatic than it usually is, or, perhaps, was intended to be.

Melodiya presents an unusual interpretation of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord. Written during the Cöthen period (1717-23), the sonatas, along with the solo suites for cello, violin and harpsichord, are the highest chamber instrumental accomplishments of the great German master. Today they belong to the golden repertoire of cello music, although at times they are played on other stringed instruments.

Steven Isserlis and Richard Egarr here assemble all the viola da gamba sonatas written by three composers born in the propitious year of 1685: one each by Handel and Domenico Scarlatti, and three by JS Bach. Isserlis plays them on the gamba’s modern cousin, the cello, and the microphone loves his playing, picking up all the nuances and scampering asides from his soft-spoken instrument which can sometimes get lost in big concert halls. Egarr on harpsichord matches Isserlis’s eloquence and rambunctious energy all the way. The dreamy, airy slow movement of Bach’s Sonata in G minor brings telling use of vibrato as Isserlis circles around Egarr, his playing at once idiomatic and soulful. An extra cellist reinforces the bass line in the Handel and Scarlatti, in which the composers give the harpsichordist only a framework; Egarr’s imaginative realisations ensure that even when Scarlatti is at his most repetitive, he is never dull.

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.

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.

That said, Anner Bylsma's disc gets a great deal more playing time. The timbre of the piccolo cello is ideally matched with the organ. While purists may balk at such unusual instrumentation, I cannot help but think such an experiment is quite in keeping with the spirit of Baroque era practices. In general, I try not to judge the success of a recording by a preconceived idea of what a musical elite would or would not approve of.