Rachel Brown (flute) and William Carter (lute and guitar)

JS Bach (attrib.): Sonata in C major BWV 1033
JS Bach:  Prelude and Fugue BWV 999 and 1000 for solo lute
Frederick the Great:  Sonata in C major
Telemann:  Fantasias in D minor and D major
Mozart: Sonata in C major K330 arr. for flute and guitar

 

Programme Notes

Sonata in C for flute and continuo, BWV 1033                                                                  
attributed to J S Bach  (1685-1750)     

 

1. Andante - presto; 2. Allegro; 3. Adagio; 4. Menuet 1 & 2

Four sonatas for flute and either obbligato harpsichord (in which the keyboard part is fully written out) or continuo (consisting of only the bass line, with sets of figures to indicate what harmonies are to be played) can be confidently ascribed to Johann Sebastian Bach. Three more which have also been attributed to him are probably the work of others.

The Sonata in C, BWV 1033, is preserved in a manuscript copied out by Bach’s eldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel sometime around 1731; although the manuscript attributes the sonata to Johann Sebastian some commentators suggest it may in fact be by Carl Philipp Emanuel, possibly with his father’s guidance (he would have been sixteen years old in 1731).

The opening movement is in two sections; the first is moderately paced, followed abruptly by the quicker second section. The allegro second movement is followed by an adagio featuring some florid writing for the flute. The sonata ends with a pair of minuets, the first repeated after the second. In the first minuet, for the only time in the sonata, the continuo part becomes an obbligato one, fully written out. For this and other reasons, it has been suggested that the sonata was put together from a variety of sources.

Prelude in C minor, BWV 999; Fugue in G minor, BWV 1000                                
J S Bach

Seven works by Bach apparently intended for lute have come down to us. Three of them, the G minor Suite, BWV 995, C minor Partita, BWV 997, and G minor Fugue, BWV 1000, exist in contemporary copies  written out in tablature (a different form of notation, used in music for lute and other instruments) by lutenists Bach knew personally. Of these, only the Partita appears to have been originally conceived for the lute. The other two, together with the Partita in E, BWV 1006a, are transcriptions of music for other instruments. In addition to his solo pieces, Bach specified the lute in movements from the St John and St Matthew Passions, and two lutes in Cantata 198, known as the Trauer Ode.

The Prelude, BWV 999, is thought to have been composed either shortly before or shortly after Bach moved from Cöthen to Leipzig. Its only known contemporary source is a manuscript copied by Bach’s friend, and possibly one-time pupil, Johann Peter Kellner, a composer and organist based in Gräfenroda, in the central German region of Thuringia.

The Fugue, BWV 1000, is a version of the second movement from Bach’s Sonata for solo violin no 1, BWV 1001, written out in lute tablature, no doubt with the composer’s blessing, by his friend, Leipzig-born lutenist and organist Johann Christian Weyrauch.

Flute Sonata in C                                                                                            
Frederick 2nd, King of Prussia (1712-1786)

Frederick 2nd, generally known as Frederick the Great, was active as a composer, flautist and patron of music. He studied the flute with the leading eighteenth-century German player Johann Joachim Quantz, and became a highly skilled performer. When he became King of Prussia 1740 he established an orchestra at his court in Berlin, and appointed Quantz as court composer, and JS Bach’s eldest son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, as harpsichordist. His musical tastes became increasingly narrow and conservative as he grew older, and he had little time for CPE Bach’s more advanced compositions. Among his own works are four concertos for flute and strings, and 121 sonatas for flute and keyboard, some of which are now lost. 

Two fantasias for solo flute, TWV 40:7 and 8         
Georg Phillip Telemann (1681-1767)

No 6 in D minor: Dolce – allegro – spirituoso; No 7 in D: Alla francese - presto

Telemann was one of the most astonishingly prolific composers of his age. In an article published at the time of his tercentenary in 1981, the scholar Nicholas Anderson estimated that he “probably wrote more music than Bach and Handel put together”. Like Bach, he was interested in combining elements from the various national characteristics current in his day, drawing not only on French and Italian styles but also on less cultivated music from further east. In his first post, as Hofkapellmeister to Count Erdmann von Promnitz, based in Moravia, he was strongly attracted to the sound of Polish and Moravian folk music “in its true barbaric beauty”, as he put it.

Among his vast output of instrumental music are two sets of fantasias for unaccompanied instruments, twelve of each for violin and for flute. The fantasias for flute date from 1732-3 and were first published in Hamburg where Telemann had been director of music at the five principal churches since 1721. They are among the outstanding works of the baroque flute repertoire, for both their expressiveness and virtuosity. Like JS Bach, in his works for solo instrument, Telemann sometimes suggests a richer texture than actually is the case.

The opening section of No 6 is slow and measured, but with some wide, agile melodic leaps. The middle section is brisk, and the third quicker still. All three sections involve wide melodic leaps, requiring great agility from the player.

No 7 begins in the style of a French overture. The two opening sections are each repeated; the first is marked by stately dotted rhythms, while the second is quick, with a brief return to the opening music to round it off. The concluding presto section is brief and succinct.

Piano Sonata in C, K330                                                 
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)   transcribed for flute and guitar by Stephan Schäfer

1. Allegro moderato; 2. Andante cantabile; 3. Allegretto

This sonata forms a group of three, with the Sonatas in A, K331 (with the well-known ‘Turkish rondo’ finale) and in F, K332, that were once thought to have dated from Mozart’s visit to Paris in 1778. They are now known to have been written a few years later, either during his visit to Munich in 1781 to supervise the first production of his opera Idomeneo, or soon after he settled in Vienna later that same year. In a letter of June 1784 to his father in Salzburg Mozart states that the three sonatas, of which he had earlier sent copies to his sister, were now in the hands of the Viennese publisher Artaria. They duly appeared in print later that year.

The lively opening movement is followed by one of the most deeply-felt middle movements in Mozart’s solo piano sonatas – a song-like F major piece with much darker F minor core. The finale returns to the bubbly mood of the opening movement.

 © Mike Wheeler, 2010