Bach: Trio Sons [CD]

This CD illustrates how present-day musicians can arrange Bach's compositions in accordance to his teachings, beyond the narrow limits set by the ideal of fidelity to the score. With good criteria, Il Maniatico Ensemble has arranged the six sonatas BWV 525 to 530, originally intended for organ, adapting them to an ensemble consisting of oboe, keyboard (harpsichord or organ), and cello. Johann Sebastian Bach himself is a good example of this conception of the musical work, far from the conceptual changes introduced by Romantic aesthetics. His arrangements of pieces by others and by himself are well known. He arranged concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello, and Telemann for organ; he turned oboe and violin concertos into harpsichord concertos; he transformed movements of concertos into cantata choruses; he reused and adapted vocal compositions in order to include them in other vocal compositions, etc. The present recording includes one of these arrangements by Bach himself. It is a version of the BWV 1030 sonata in B minor for flute and obbligato harpsichord, a work that is central to the flute players' repertoire canon. An autograph score by Bach himself of the sonata BVW 1030 for flute and harpsichord is preserved, and presumably he wrote it around 1736/37, during Bach's last years as conductor of the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig.