It was once thought that all six of J.S. Bach's trio
sonatas for organ (BWV 525-530) were composed in or
about 1727; now, however, the period during which he is
believed to have worked on these fascinating pieces has
been expanded, and a composition date as late as 1731
has been assigned to the Trio Sonata for organ No. 5 in
C major, BWV 529. It is, like the others of the set, a
work in three movements in which the traditional three
voices of the Baroque trio sonata are all assigned to a
single ...(+)
It was once thought that all six of J.S. Bach's trio
sonatas for organ (BWV 525-530) were composed in or
about 1727; now, however, the period during which he is
believed to have worked on these fascinating pieces has
been expanded, and a composition date as late as 1731
has been assigned to the Trio Sonata for organ No. 5 in
C major, BWV 529. It is, like the others of the set, a
work in three movements in which the traditional three
voices of the Baroque trio sonata are all assigned to a
single keyboard player -- one upper instrument voice
for each hand and the basso continuo to the feet
(pedals). And so, in typical Johann Sebastian fashion,
something very new is created from something very old
-- and this process represents an important, if not
widely known, step in the evolution of the sonata as it
is now generally understood.
Freshness of instrumentation and layout aside, the
music of BWV 529 is representative of the Baroque
chamber sonata tradition. The normal sonata-style
imitative gesture is made to open the Allegro first
movement; here a bit of invertible counterpoint is
used, the second voice entering before it properly
"should," to add a little interest to the standard
technique. The main subject of the movement has two
distinct elements to it: sixteenth notes that oscillate
around a fixed internal pedal point and a follow-up
idea in bouncy eighth notes. Precious little material
is added as the movement moves forward -- what we have
is essentially an ingenious 155-bar working-out of just
two contrasting thoughts.
The following Largo is as florid a movement as is to be
found in the organ sonatas; the two highly ornamented
upper voices weave in and around one another atop a
steady bass line. The Allegro finale is the most
typical trio-sonata movement in BWV 529; one can indeed
imagine the opening bars having been penned by
Arcangelo Corelli, though the following compact and
elaborate working-out of this basic contrapuntal cell
would have been entirely beyond the scope of the Roman
master.
PARTITION