Viola da Gamba

This album is a story of family and friendship. Positioned between homage to a father figure and modernity, the viola da gamba sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel and Johann Christian Bach are a revealing element in the history of the Bach family and its ties of friendship with two families of virtuoso instrumentalists, the Abels and the Hesses, who had already inspired the work of Johann Sebastian.

Legends of the period-performance community Sarah Cunningham and Richard Egarr need little introduction with their contributions to recorded music garnering critical acclaim from early music afficionados across the decades. They join forces for their AVIE Records debut recording of J.S. Bach’s celebrated Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord together with Cunningham’s dazzling Organ Trio Sonata and Flute Partita arrangements to conclude the programme. The Gamba Sonatas have long-established themselves as a staple in the cello/gamba repertoire, notably extending their fame into popular culture with the Adagio from Sonata No. 3 featuring (alongside with Bach’s solo suites) in Anthony Minghella’s 1990 BAFTA award-winning movie “Truly, Madly, Deeply”, starring Alan Rickman and Juliet Stephenson.

Johann Sebastian Bach, though largely unaffected by the trends of his time, reimagined many older forms with striking originality, shaping the course of Western music. Among his innovations is the sonata for a melodic instrument (such as the viola da gamba) and obbligato harpsichord, where both parts engage in equal dialogue—a model later expanded by his sons and composers like Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Following their acclaimed first album dedicated to Corelli’s Sonatas Op. 5, Teodoro Baù and Andrea Buccarella now present their second duo recording: the Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord by J.S. Bach, each revealing a unique stylistic approach within a unified form.

Antoine Tamestit and his artistic partner Masato Suzuki, a soloist in the famous Bach Collegium Japan, have immersed themselves in Bach’s three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord in order to give a sublime interpretation of them on the viola – both instruments use the same alto clef, even if the projection of the sound is entirely different. So this is no transcription, but leaves the artists in total freedom to rediscover with delight these all too rarely played masterpieces!