Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital
of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany,
on 21 March 1685 O.S. (31 March 1685 N.S.). He was the
son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town
musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt.
The key of E major presents many fingering challenges
on the Baroque flute, and so this sonata is beyond the
skills of most of the flutists known to have been in
Bach's circle. According to the title page of a later
copy of th...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, the capital
of the duchy of Saxe-Eisenach, in present-day Germany,
on 21 March 1685 O.S. (31 March 1685 N.S.). He was the
son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, the director of the town
musicians, and Maria Elisabeth Lämmerhirt.
The key of E major presents many fingering challenges
on the Baroque flute, and so this sonata is beyond the
skills of most of the flutists known to have been in
Bach's circle. According to the title page of a later
copy of the score, Bach wrote this sonata for the
highly adept Potsdam flutist Michael Gabriel
Fredersdorff, who was in the service of the
flute-loving King Frederick the Great. Bach adopts the
four-movement, slow-fast-slow-fast structure typical of
the sonata di chiesa or "church sonata," in which the
individual movements are usually given tempo
designations rather than dance titles. Unexpectedly,
though, Bach dubs the third movement "Siciliano," and
two of the other movements are crypto-dances: the
second is a Rigaudon, and the finale a Polonaise. The
opening movement, however, is a straightforward Adagio
ma non tanto. It's a stately, placid piece, a precursor
to Gluck's Dance of the Blessed Spirits. The first
melody stretches in long, gentle arcs, then wanders
freely around the staff, taking time for occasional,
modest trills. This is succeeded by an even freer
section in which the melody follows the same basic
contours but flirts with the minor mode, and then a
coda that strips the theme to its most essential notes.
This movement establishes a structural pattern Bach
will observe through most of the rest of the sonata: a
succession of fully worked-out variations rather than a
sequence of repeats that allow the performer to
improvise heavy ornamentation. The second movement,
Allegro, is a Rigaudon, typically cheerful and quick in
duple meter; many passages challenge the flutist's
breath control. The aria-like "Siciliana" brings a
pastoral mood to the sonata; with its dotted rhythms,
it's essentially a slow-motion gigue. The movement
falls into three sections, each based on the same
melodic germ, but the center portion is slightly
unsettled compared to the sections that surround it.
The final Allegro assai is the most overtly virtuosic
music here, in Baroque Polonaise form (not to be
confused with the later examples of Chopin); it's
moderately quick and demands great agility of both
fingering and tonguing.
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