Sonata in D major BWV 1028 (before 1741)

1 Adagio – 2 Allegro 3 Andante 4 Allegro

Considering that he must have known at least one extraordinarily accomplished cellist – he surely wouldn’t have written the six solo suites in the hope that one would just turn up – it is surprising that, as far as we know, Bach wrote no sonatas for cello and harpsichord. The consolation for cellists is the three sonatas for viola da gamba which, with little adaptation, make attractive sonatas for cello and piano. The combination of cello and harpsichord, incidentally, doesn’t really work with these scores, least of all the delicately balanced BWV 1028. Obviously, the sound is different but the basic trio-sonata texture – the pianist’s left and right hands taking the bass and top lines respectively, the cello taking the middle line – remains the same. The exception in the present Sonata is the Andante which, a lovely siciliano-like inspiration in B minor, is a canonic duet for cello and the pianist’s right hand, the left merely supplying the harmonies.

Considering that he must have known at least one extraordinarily accomplished cellist – he surely wouldn’t have written the six solo suites in the hope that one would just turn up – it is surprising that, as far as we know, Bach wrote no sonatas for cello and harpsichord. There are six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, written in Cöthen at much the same time perhaps as the solo sonatas and partitas, but nothing of the kind for cello. The nearest equivalent is the three sonatas for viola da gamba – an instrument much in favour at Cöthen during Bach’s time there since it had distinguished exponents both in the composer’s friend and colleague Christian Ferdinand Abel and in Prince Leopold himself. While it is most likely that the sonatas wre intended for one or the other of them, it is not impossible that they were written in Leipzig for Abel’s son Carl Friedrich, whose first instrument was the viola da gamba and who moved to that city for a few years years after the death of his father in 1737.

The consolation for cellists is that, with little adaptation, the sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord make attractive sonatas for cello and piano – rather than cello and harpsichord, that is, since it is a combination that doesn’t really work with these scores, least of all the delicately balanced BWV 1028. Obviously, the sound is different but the basic trio-sonata texture – the pianist’s left and right hands taking the bass and top lines respectively, the cello taking the middle line – remains the same. It is true that in the present work the left-hand part in the opening Adagio, which is essentially a duet for cello and right hand, has little melodic interest. But in the following Allegro it not only takes a full part in the contrapuntal development of the theme introduced in tenths by cello and right hand in the opening bars but also applies its own distinctive figuration at the beginning and end of each of the two main sections of the construction.

The Andante is another duet for cello and right hand, a lovely siciliano-like inspiration in B minor which passes its elaborately expressive melody in canon between upper parts poised over a harmonically enterprising bass line. Far from being excluded from the brilliant scoring of the final Allegro, the left hand is so involved that the cello takes on its its bass-line duties to allow it to join the right hand in the keyboard cadenza towards the end.