Sonata in A major BWV1032

In spite of his towering greatness in every other respect Bach is not usually regarded as an innovator. He did, however, play an important part in developing the duo sonata. Before he applied himself to the form there were countless sonatas for a solo wind or string instrument and keyboard but with the latter in a distinctly subordinate role with little more to do than fill in the harmonies. Bach wrote several sonatas of that kind himself. But he also wrote sonatas in which a violin, a viola da gamba or a flute is partnered by a keyboard “obbligato” which, while still supplying the harmonies, joins in a genuine dialogue on equal terms with the solo instrument.

While the Flute Sonata in A major is one of the most inspired of Bach’s duo sonatas in dialogue form, there is a small problem associated with it. At some point, long before the sonata was printed, more than 40 bars disappeared from the manuscript of the first movement. One solution to the problem is to leave out the incomplete Vivace and perform only the Largo e dolce and Allegro movements; the other is to play the Vivace in an edition that supplies a reconstruction of the missing bars, so presenting it as the three-movement work it was intended to be. The choice must be left with the performers of course. It would seem a pity, however, to omit the Vivace even if most of the last quarter of it is not likely to be exactly as Bach wrote it. A high-quality piece, it offers intriguing examples of lively and sometimes complex exchanges of thought on the theme introduced by the keyboard in the opening bars. There are other themes, the most significant of which arrives with the entry of the flute, but the first is nearly always to be heard somewhere, either in whole or – as in the canonic repartee in the middle of the movement – in part.

The second and third movements are different from the comparatively densely textured first in that they are, essentially, trios – for flute and the left hand and right hands at the keyboard – with never more than three notes played at the same time. The left hand has more independence in the Largo e dolce, since the flute and the right hand are so often intimately linked in parallel sixths or thirds or in close imitation of each other. But it also has a prominent role in the concluding, brilliantly scored Allegro where, as well as supplying the bass line, it shares in the counterpoint and introduces its own thematic ideas from time to time.