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William Hoffman wrote (December 1, 2019):
The ancient viola da gamba, the bass of the viol family, receives special, selective treatment in the music of Bach as a continuo instrument because of its extended range and as an obbligato instrument because of its timbre in vocal music. Bach's use of the viola da gamba throughout his career in his cantatas, Passions and chamber music signifies both royalty and mourning (https://www.academia.edu/4502610/The_Viol_as_Symbol_in_the_Works_of_J.S._Bach?email_work_card=thumbnail). Utilizing the established trio sonata form, Bach began shaping his chamber music in Cöthen and perfecting it in Leipzig for concerts, home use and travel, exploiting the viola da gamba which still retained favor among the now-extinct viols. At the same time, Bach transcribed earlier music, "cutting his coat to suit his cloth" or "making old wine in new bottles." Recently, Bach scholarship has put asunder traditional, rigid myths that Bach limited himself to certain music during different periods and never did revise it.
Bach employed the viola da gamba in his early cantatas BWV 106 in Mühlhausen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i5O923PzeQ) and BWV 152 in Weimar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BzyiwI7Oe8) as well as Cantata 199 in Leipzig (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydCKpBxdB8w). Here Bach favored using the gamba with "quiet" instruments such as recorder, oboe and viola d'amore, observes Ulrich Prinz.1 In Cöthen where Prince Leopold favored the instrument, Bach used it in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 because he had two able performers, Christian Ferdinand Abel (1682-?1737, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Ferdinand_Abel) and Carl Bernhard Lienicke. In Leipzig, Bach used the viola da gamba in Cantata 76 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2aOMYqQt2s), as well as the St. John and St. Matthew Passions and the Funeral Ode, Cantata 198, which were parodied in the core music of the St. Mark Passion and the Funeral Cantata for Prince Leopold, BWV 1143. Finally, Bach compiled three sonatas for gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1127-29, late in Leipzig (before 1741).2 It also is possible that Bach used the instrument to reinforce the Basso continuo in his various trio sonatas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trio_sonata: Johann Sebastian Bach) and as a possible obbligato substitute for the viola and violoncello.
Viola da Gamba Background, Myths
"The viola da gamba was the last of its family to disappear," says Charles Sanford Terry.3 First in the early 17th century was the discant viol replaced by the violin, then c.1650 the alto-tenor viol replaced by the viola, and finally more than a century later (c.1770) the gamba was replaced by the violoncello in the string quartet. Able's son, Carl Friedrich (1723-1787, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Abel-Carl-Friedrich.htm), was a Bach student (late 1730s or early 1740s) and with Johann Christian Bach presented the Bach-Able concerts in London from 1765 to 1781. Meanwhile, the trio sonata "was upheld as an ideal of compositional technique, offering a perfect synthesis of linear counterpoint, resonant harmony, and cantabile melody," says Peter Wollny.4 The three gamba-harpsichord sonatas may not have been conceived as a series and "we do not know for what occasion they were written," he says (Ibid.: 11). Bach wrote for both the six-stringed and the seven-stringed tenor-bass gamba, says Terry and Prinz, the latter for the D Major Sonata, BWV 1028 and for the St. Matthew Passion. Bach knew the Leipzig instrument maker J. C. Hoffmann, says Prinz (Ibid.) and one of the latter (1725) by him is in the Bachhaus in Eisenach and one of the former (1731) at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum , Leipzig University. "A gamba was also listed in the inventory made at Bach's death," says Prinz.
The myths that Bach composed chamber music only in Cöthen and vocal music in Leipzig were shattered by leading Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, showing source-critical as well as stylistic evidence.5 He finds that most of Bach's chamber music, while it may have been conceived in Cöthen, was revised when it was used as pedagogy and performance in Leipzig, most notably during concerts of the Collegium musicum at Zimmermann's coffee house and gardens (1729-41), as well as at home and during travels (Ibid.: 231). The three viola da gamba sonatas contain materials based on earlier works with BWV 1027 as a transcription of BWV 1039, from before c.1726, a sonata for two flutes and continuo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-8Ig71wBfw), BWV 1028 music from the St. Matthew Passion, says Nicholas Kenyon,6 while BWV 1029 recalls the opening of the Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1019 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C93Tg81zAx0, says Richard D. P. Jones,7 or may have had an earlier origin in a double concerto, says Kenyon in a recent article.8 "It seems to me that BWV 1027 and BWV 1039 are two different means of expressing the same idea" and that they clearly belong to the same period," says Wolff (Ibid.: 234).
Gamba Sonatas BWV 1027-29
"Despite their uniformity of compositional form, each of the three sonatas has a profile of its own," says Wollny (Ibid.: 11). The harpsichord dominates all three as Bach and sons display their keyboard virtuosity, with the gamba showing "comparatively little opportunity to display its technique," says early Bach scholar Charles Sanford Terry.9 They are all "admirably composed, and so that even in our days most of them would be heard by connoisseurs with pleasure (1802)," says Nikolaus Forkel in his Bach biography, as cited in Terry. Meanwhile, "their interest is in the music rather than their instrumental technique," says Terry (Ibid.). "In these stylish pieces Bach invents a new guise for the gamba, which he treats much like the interchangeable galant instruments that occupy the musical world of Telemann's Getreuer Music-Meister," says Laurence Dreyfus.10
They "may have been written quite late," says Kenyon (2018, Ibid.: 169). "Bach must have had a fine gamba player in Leipzig," such as Carl Friedrich Abel, and "they are as forward-looking as the Violin Sonatas but are laid out in a rather different way, since the viola da gamba part naturally lies between the right-hand and left-hand parts of the keyboard," says Kenyon (Ibid.). The first and second sonatas are in four movements of sonata da chiesa form (slow-fast-slow-fast, while the third is in three-movement concerto form (fast, slow-fast).
The only accessible autograph of the three is the Sonata No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1027 (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00001138, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqWHdfpu7Ks). It dates to c.1742 when Bach also presented the third performance of the St. Matthew Passion, with the bass aria, "Komm, süßes Kreuz" (Come, sweetest cross, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgBFgIavUuU), written on the same paper as the sonata. The St. John Passion has two arias that use the viola da gamba: "Es ist vollbracht" (It is finished), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atFMzU1E7H4, and "E" (Imagine), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE5JPxGQ-Cc). Cantata 198 has the aria No. 5, "Wie starb die Heldin so vergnügt" (How did the heroine die so contented?), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bms1IPOwRf0. The first gamba sonata is in a distinct, different concertante style from the other two, with opening Adagio in triple time having "pastoral quality," observes Hans Vogt,11 and is quite idiomatically written for the gamba. The Allegro ma non tanto in fugal style is a lively dialogue between the two instruments, while in the Andante the two instruments imitate each other. The closing Allegro is mono-thematic and has "no discernable three-part organization," says Vogt (Ibid.: 206).
The second gamba sonata, in D Major, BWV 1028 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KH0EU9csu4M), also may have been completed at the same time as the first, c.1742, observes Jones (Ibid.: 364). The earliest manuscript is a copy by Bach student Christian Friedrich Penzel (1753, https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002014). "This sonata is better suited to the cello than the first gamba sonata," Vogt, suggests. "The vibrant tone of the cello is in keeping with the direct, uncomplicated joyfulness of the piece." Here Bach also "incorporates elements of the galant style in the music," observes Jones (Ibid.: 365). The short, introductory, canon-like Adagio in older style is followed by the modern element in the Allegro, a non-fugal dance movement in binary form with melodic syncopation. The Andante No. 3 is a Siciliano with a pseudo-fugal texture and the work closes with a non-fugal Allegro in 6/8 with contrasting dynamics.
The third gamba sonata in G Minor, BWV 1029, also in a copy by Penzel (https://www.bach-digital.de/receive/BachDigitalSource_source_00002519), "maintains the level of inventiveness of the others," says Kenyon (2018, Ibid.: 170). "This piece [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrI6BGB0KuQ] has always been well-regarded" and Philipp Spitta [II: 118]12 called it "of the greatest beauty and most striking originality," says Kenyon. The "concerto form has had a very important share in the construction of the [opening and closing] allegros," says Spitta. The opening Vivace has an "irresistible swing which keeps up the movement and action by new and unexpected impulses," he says. A "lovely adagio in B flat major (3-2 time) satisfies our desire for melody with a devotional strain." It "is cast in binary dance form with repeats" and "is without doubt one of Bach's most remarkable instrumental slow movements," says Jones (Ibid.: 267). In "the last allegro there seems to be an inexhaustible fund of the loveliest melodies," says Spitta (Ibid.: 1:121). "Bach held as absolute a sway over the art of episodical treatments as over that of thematic treatment." The work has been suggested as a Seventh Brandenburg Concerto for viol consort (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ9yjy1_4QE).
Conclusions
The sons of Bach inherited some of his autographs of the chamber music and some manuscripts found their way to Forkel through Emanuel and Friedemann. The only Bach son with direct connections to the viola da gamba sonatas was Johann Christian (1735-1782, https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Bach-Johann-Christian.htm). A rare early song in German, "Mezendora," composed just after his father's death, quotes the opening of the third gamba sonata (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrI6BGB0KuQ), cited by Robert L. Marshall.13 "Once again: a son of Johann Sebastian Bach demonstrated by virtue of his extraordinary craftsmanship and originality, that — despite the outward appearances (or sound) of things — in the final analysis he was his father's authentic artistic heir," suggests Marshall (Ibid.: 173).
Like much of Bach's other chamber music, the viola da gamba sonatas were viewed at the beginning of the New Bach edition of 1950 as having questionable authenticity, origin, and chronology. "There is the danger of circular argument (style — date — style) of hypothesis built on hypothesis, and theories tend to reflect the preconceptions of the writer," is a cautionary summary of David Ledbetter.14 "A sign of the progress of musicology has been the way in which Bach has come to be viewed in more recent decades as a more complex, flexible and in the end more interesting figure than before, and this is where the future lies. Given the quality of the works considered in this section [Instrumental Chamber and Ensemble Music], and the fact that they have in general received less attention than, say, the vocal and keyboard works, the scope is enormous."
FOOTNOTES
1 Ulrich Prinz, "viol, viola da gamba," in Oxford Composer Companions: J. S. Bach, ed. Malcolm Boyd (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999: 490).
2 Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord, summary, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonatas_for_viola_da_gamba_and_harpsichord_(Bach); overview, http://bach-cantatas.com/NVD/BWV1027-1029.htm; critical commentary, https://www.baerenreiter.com/en/shop/product/details/BA5063_41/).
3 Charles Sanford Terry, Chapter VI, "the Strings," in Bach's Orchestra (London: Oxford University Press, 1932: 133), https://unm-on-worldcat-org.libproxy.unm.edu/search?queryString=kw%3A%28Bach%27s%20Orchestra%2C%20Terry&databaseList=1271%2C143%2C1487%2C1533%2C1672%2C1697%2C1708%2C2006%2C2007%2C203%2C2201%2C2237%2C2259%2C2260%2C2261%2C2262%2C2263%2C2264%2C2267%2C2268%2C2281%2C2328%2C3036%2C3201%2C3413%2C638&origPageViewName=pages%2Fadvanced-search-page&clusterResults=true&scope=#/oclc/860274; see also "Viol," https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viol.
4 Peter Wollny, Bach "Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, BWV 1027-29, transcription after the trio sonata, BWV 1038," Eng. trans. Michael & Janet Berridge; liner notes, Amazon.com: 10).
5 Christoph Wolff, Chapter 17, "Bach's Leipzig Chamber Music," in Bach: Essays on His Life and Music Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1991: 223).
6 Nicholas Kenyon, "Instrumental Music," in The Faber Pocket Guide to Bach (London: Faber, 2011: 379), https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571233274-the-faber-pocket-guide-to-bach.html.
7 Richard D. P. Jones, "Sonatas in Concerto Style," in The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Volume II: 1717-1750, Music to Delight the Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013: 267).
8 Nicholas Kenyon, "Viola da Gamba Sonatas, BWV 1027-1029," in Bach 333: The Music (Berlin, Deutsche Grammophon, 2018: 170).
9 Charles Sanford Terry, "The Strings," in Bach's Orchestra (London: Oxford University Press, 1932: 134), citing Nikolaus Forkel, "Pieces for Clavier with the Accompaniment of OthInstruments," in Part VI, Forkel's Biography of Bach, in The New Bach Reader: A Life of Johann Sebastian Bach in Letters and Documents, ed. Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, rev. and enlarged by Christoph Wolff (NewYork: W. W. Norton, 1998: 469).
10 Laurence Dreyfus, "The String Instruments in the Continuo Group: The Viola da gamba," in Bach's Continuo Group: Players and Practices in his Vocal Works (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press 1987: 167). "On Bach's special use of the viola da gamba in the three sonatas, see my remarks in the Afterword to the Peters edition of BWV 1027-29 (Leipzig: Edition Peters, 1987)," Footnote 57". 255; Amazon.com: Concluding Remarks.
11 Hans Vogt, Chapter 24, "Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Clavier," in Johann Sebastian Bach's Chamber Music: Background, Analyses, Individual Works, Eng. trans. Kenn Johnson (Portland OR: Amadeus Press, 1988: 32f); original diss., Johann Sebastian Bachs Kammermusik: Voraussetzungen, Analysen, Einzelwerke (Stuttgart: GmbH, 1981); overview, https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1711970.
12 Philipp Spitta, "Sonatas for the Viola da Gamba," in Johann Sebastian Bach: His Work and Influence on the Music of Germany, 1685-1750, unabridged edition, Eng. trans. Clara Bell and J. A. Fuller Maitand (London: Novello, 1889: II: 119ff).
13 Robert L Marshall, Chapter 10, "Father and ons: Confronting a Unique, Daunting Paternal Legacy," in Bach and Mozart: Essays on the Enigma of Genius (Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2019: 169).
14 David Ledbetter, "Instrumental Chamber and Ensemble Music," in The Routedge Research Companion to Johann Sebastian Bach. ed. Robin A. Leaver (London: Routedge, 2017: 354). |
