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.
The fifth of J.S. Bach's six authentic sonatas for
violin and harpsichord (BWV 1014 - 1019), the Sonata in
F minor, BWV 1018, is not the full-blown formal
experiment that its immediate successor BWV 1019 in G
major is; nor does it offer such stylistic deviation as
we find in its immediate predecessor BWV 1017 in C
minor. In its own quiet way, however, the Sonata in F
minor, BWV 1018, breaks the mold firmly established by
the first three of the six violin/harpsichord sonatas.
The slow movement that opens this four-movement sonata
is of stunning length; the other, internal slow
movement is of a kind not found elsewhere in these six
sonatas, and its two fast movements appear, as we shall
see, in reverse order.
Beyond its great length, the Largo first movement of
BWV 1018 boasts a texture unlike any other in Bach's
chamber music -- a harpsichord part in three voices
explores, in detail, the contrapuntal and developmental
possibilities latent in a single seven-note subject,
while the violin adds a flexible obbligato line. The
first of the two fast movements, an Allegro, is of the
variety that, if we look elsewhere in the
violin/harpsichord sonatas, usually comes last: a
quasi-fugal, binary-form essay complete with repeat
signs. Melody as we usually understand it is altogether
absent throughout the Adagio third movement. Instead,
there is a rich four-voice texture divided into two
pairs: the violin takes one of the pairs and sets it up
as pulsating double-stops, the harpsichord takes the
other pair and sets it up as two opposing voices of
thirty-second-note bursts. For the final Vivace Bach
employs the three-section form usually used for the
second movement (here the central section is
particularly brief); but it is doubtful that Bach would
ever have used such a dance-like movement as the second
movement in a chamber sonata, whereas it serves
perfectly as a finale.
Source: AllMusic
(http://www.allmusic.com/composition/sonata-for-violin-
keyboard-no-5-in-f-minor-bwv-1018-mc0002365774).
Although originally written for Violin & Harpsichord, I
created this Arrangement of the Largo from the Sonata
No. 5 in F Minor (BWV 1018 No. 1) for Viola & Piano.
PARTITION