Luogo e data di registrazione		Breukelen, Utrecht (Holland) - settembre 1963
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Dr. Alfred Krings
	Prima Edizione LP		Harmonia Mundi | HM 30 648 | 1 LP - durata 40' 31" | (p) 1963
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | 02876 70045 2 | 1 CD - durata 40' 31" | (c) 2005 | ADD
	Cover Art		-
	Note		-

Among Bach's compositions three sonatas for gamba and concertante harpsichord have come down to us; yet there are deficiencis in our knowledge of how they came to be writte,. They would appear to have been written in Bach's Cöthen period, that is between 1717 and 1723, particularly as Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen was himself a zealous gamba player. All three sonatas belong to the trio-sonata category, since - with a few exceptions which realise the instruments possibilities for multiple stopping - they at times develop three independent lines, i.e. 1. gamba, 2. right and 3. left hand of the harpsichord part. The 1sr sonata in G major is the re-casting of an earlier Bach composition. We know it as a trio for two flutes and continuo, without being able to state whether this in fact represents the first fradt; but the gamba version has gained substantially not only by the instrumentation (the second flute part being set here an octave lower for the gamba) but also by a multiplicity of compositional refinements. With its four-movement pattern it bears the stamp of the slow/quick/slow/quick form of the Baroque "sonata da chiesa", with a use of a popular melodic content in the quick fugato movements. The 2nd sonata belongs in form to the same category. In its skilful technical exploitation of the two instruments iy may well be taken as the original composition. Its particular charm consists in the application of concertante stylistic elements: no longer do both the quick movements begin with imitative voices following one upon the other, and in the harpsichord passages of the 4th movement there is a distinct reminder of the virtuoso figures of the 5th Brandenburg. Something announced first in the 2nd sonata appears in completed form in the 3rd: the fusion of sonata and concerto form. To purely outward appearances the three-movement quick/low/quick concerto pattern is evident. The very thematic pattern of the 1st movement however is a palpable reminder of the 3rd Brandenburg, and we do not know whether of not perhaps a (vanished) original concerto movement of Bach's is latent within this movement, a special feature of this being two interpolated "cantabile" interludes. Very seldom does Bach employ this stylistic device, - something wholly "modern" for his day - and again it is assuredly no accident that we come across one of the passages of this type in the 5th Brandenburg (3rd movement). Dr. Alfred Dürr