👉 Johann Sebastian Bach – Chamber works for violin, harpsichord and cello
Works
- Sonata in E minor BWV 1023
- Sonata in G major BWV 1021
- Sonata in C minor BWV 1024 (formerly attributed to Bach)
- Sonata in G major BWV 1019a (excerpts, early version)
- Fugue in G minor BWV 1026
- Sonata in G minor BWV 1029 (originally for viola da gamba and harpsichord)
Performers
- Isabelle Faust – baroque violin
- Kristin von der Goltz – cello
- Kristian Bezuidenhout – harpsichord
Harmonia Mundi, 2025
Available on all streaming platforms
By Damián Autorino
Editor at Moto Perpetuo
Isabelle Faust has a long relationship with Bach on disc. She has already given us the Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin, the six sonatas with obbligato harpsichord, the concertos, and the Brandenburgs. Now she turns to a group of works that stand on the margins of the violin repertoire, less often played and sometimes even treated as secondary.
But as Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach once wrote of his father, “One is accustomed to seeing nothing but masterpieces from him.” These sonatas and fragments confirm it. Written for violin with continuo, they include the E minor Sonata BWV 1023, with its dazzling opening toccata, the G major BWV 1021, copied jointly by Bach and Anna Magdalena, the C minor BWV 1024, probably linked to Pisendel, the early version of BWV 1019a, and the extraordinary Fugue in G minor BWV 1026, whose technical demands remind us of the virtuoso level of violin playing in Bach’s Weimar circle.
The continuo here is no mere harmonic support. With Kristian Bezuidenhout at the harpsichord and Kristin von der Goltz on cello, the bass line takes on a fully independent, contrapuntal role. In BWV 1024, for instance, the harpsichord drives the Presto fugue with striking vitality. In BWV 1026, Faust negotiates double stops and extreme registers with brilliance, but always in dialogue with her partners.
The presence of von der Goltz is also significant. She and Faust have played together for decades, sharing an approach that combines scholarly insight with instinctive communication. That long friendship is audible here, in the sense of chamber music as conversation.
Far from being “bonus tracks” in Bach’s catalogue, these works enrich our picture of his inventiveness. They may not have the weight of the Partitas or the obbligato sonatas, but they show another face of Bach: experimental, intimate, and written for friends, students, or special occasions. And in Faust’s hands, with Bezuidenhout and von der Goltz, they reveal their full value.
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