Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German
composer and musician of the Baroque period. He
enriched established German styles through his mastery
of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and
his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from
abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's
compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the
Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions,
and over three hundred cantatas of which approximately
two hundred survive.His ...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 – 1750) was a German
composer and musician of the Baroque period. He
enriched established German styles through his mastery
of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organization, and
his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from
abroad, particularly from Italy and France. Bach's
compositions include the Brandenburg Concertos, the
Goldberg Variations, the Mass in B minor, two Passions,
and over three hundred cantatas of which approximately
two hundred survive.His music is revered for its
technical command, artistic beauty, and intellectual
depth. While Bach's abilities as an organist were
highly respected during his lifetime, he was not widely
recognised as an important composer until a revival of
interest in his music during the first half of the 19th
century. He is now generally regarded as one of the
greatest composers of all time.
Although Bach's Sonata No. 2 in A major for violin and
harpsichord, BWV 1015, may seem virtually identical to
the first of the set in terms of general structure and
movement layout, a closer listen reveals that it is
really quite individual in shape, content, and -- most
significantly -- character. In the new realm of the duo
sonata, it is every bit as warm and ingratiating a
piece as its immediate predecessor is stern and, at
times, lean.
BWV 1015 in A major is, like each of the other five
unquestionably authentic violin/harpsichord sonatas, a
work whose four movements follow the traditional
slow-fast-slow-fast plan of the Baroque sonata da
chiesa. The liquid melody that opens the 6/8 time first
movement (which has no tempo indication) may be
sweetness itself, but Bach still treats it as a subject
for imitation in the opening bars; within just a few
bars the movement has become a cascade of inviting
sixteenth-note gestures in three voices. The Allegro
assai second movement is, like the second movement of
the Sonata No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1014, a semi-fugal
vessel in three sections (ABA'), but there the
similarity ends. Its exuberantly arched subject is the
antithesis of the compact, Corellian subject used in
BWV 1014, and a subsidiary strain that pits leggiero
eighth-note arpeggios in the violin against brilliantly
scalloped sixteenths in the harpsichord right-hand has
no parallel at all in the B minor Sonata movement. The
third movement of the Sonata No. 2 in A major, Andante
un poco in F sharp minor, is a famous one; it is a
strict two-voice canon (with bass accompaniment, of
course) from start to finish. But for all its academic
contrivance, it is as rich and songful as one might
ever hope. The Presto finale is a binary operation,
fugal at the start but abandoning that subject for a
new idea at the start of the second half (this new idea
is actually a derivative of a secondary idea in the
first half). Only at the very end does the original
subject return -- in flashy, stretto fashion.
Source: AllMusic
(http://www.allmusic.com/composition/sonata-for-violin-
keyboard-no-2-in-a-major-bwv-1015-mc0002365159).
Although originally written for Violin & Harpsichord, I
created this Arrangement of the Sonata No. 2 in A Major
(BWV 1015) for Woodwind Trio (Flute, Oboe & Bassoon).
PARTITION