Sonata No.1 in G minor for solo violin, BWV 1001 (before 1720)

Siciliano

Presto

The major technical problem for the present-day violinist in performing Bach’s unaccompanied sonatas and partitas is the result of two comparatively modern developments, the concave bow and the high-arched bridge. Both of them make it more difficult to play on more than two strings at once. The sonatas and partitas, on the other hand, are abundant in multi-stopped harmonic and contrapuntal effects of all kinds.

In the Adagio prelude to Sonata No.1 in G minor the spontaneously developed and elaborately decorated melodic line is accompanied by harmonies which apparently require the violinist to play on three or four strings at once. On a modern instrument most of these chords have to be simulated by spreading them in arpeggios. These problems are negligible, however, compared with those of the ensuing Fuga which is a virtual-reality fugue in three parts.

The conventional distinction between the sonata and the partita is that the latter includes dance movements while the former does not. So the Siciliano in the present work is an anomaly, or it would be if it had anything much of the dance about it. It is, in fact, a thoughtful slow movement with a melodic line carried for the most part on the lower strings with two accompanying voices on the other strings. The brilliant Presto finale, on the other hand, is a single-line moto perpetuo with harmonies implied rather than actually heard except in the double-stopped central and closing cadences.

Siciliano

Presto

The major technical problem for the present-day violinist in performing Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas - he wrote three of each - is the result of two comparatively modern developments, the concave bow and the high-arched bridge. Both of them make it more difficult to play on more than two strings at once. The sonatas and partitas, on the other hand, are abundant in multi-stopped harmonic and contrapuntal effects of all kinds. Unless he was being perversely idealistic, he must have known at least one violinist at the court of Anhalt-Cöthen (where he finalised the collection of these works in 1720) who excelled in such effects. Or perhaps he had himself in mind as a performer. In either case, even though no other composer of the time is known to have written anything anywhere near as ambitious in this style, Bach was surely working within the capabilities of the violin as he knew it in his day.

In the Adagio prelude to Sonata No.1 in G minor the spontaneously developed and elaborately but expressively decorated melodic line is accompanied by harmonies which apparently require the violinist to play on three or four strings at once. On a modern instrument most of these chords have to be simulated by spreading them in arpeggios. As for holding onto one note while simultaneously bowing a melodic phrase above or below it, the scoring seems to be more theoretical than practical in this case. Whether the same restrictions would have applied in the early eighteenth century it is impossible to say, but it seems that at least some of them would have been inevitable even then.

The problems of the opening Adagio are negligible compared with those of the ensuing Fuga which is a virtual-reality fugue in three parts. The fact that it is scarcely possible to play three parts at once does not prevent the composer giving the impression that it is actually happening - by postulating the harmonies which would have been created by the contrapuntal interaction of four voices - and sublimely going through the whole formal process, including non-fugal episodes and a decorative coda. While this is not the most complex of Bach’s solo-violin fugues, it does seem to have been his favourite. Certainly, he used it again in transcriptions for lute (also in G minor) and organ (in D minor).

The conventional distinction between the sonata and the partita is that the latter includes dance movements while the former does not. So the Siciliano in the present work is an anomaly, or it would be if it had anything much of the dance about it. As it is, although it is in a compound metre with a prominent dotted rhythm, this Siciliano is not so much a dance as a thoughtful slow movement with a melodic line carried for the most part on the lower strings with two accompanying voices on the other strings. The brilliant Presto finale, on the other hand, is a single-line moto perpetuo with harmonies implied rather than actually heard except in the double-stopped central and closing cadences.