Bach: Partitas for Viola da Gamba

Johann Sebastian Bach’s Partitas for solo violin BWV 1002, 1004, and 1006 are remarkably visionary works.

Within the established framework of the dance suite, Bach pushes the expressive and technical possibilities of the instrument to unprecedented heights. Few works from the period display a comparable level of compositional and instrumental complexity.

The practice of adapting violin music for the viola da gamba is well documented from the rise of both instruments through the middle of the eighteenth century, making the transcription of Bach’s Partitas a thoroughly natural undertaking. With its affinity for both polyphony and the jeu d’harmonie, as well as for the dance-suite tradition itself, the viola da gamba provides these works with a new perspective. While nothing in the instrument’s original repertoire matches the density of harmonic and contrapuntal writing that Bach achieves in these Partitas, the pieces take on a new dimension when heard on the viola da gamba. They are transformed without losing their identity, like a familiar landscape seen from a different vantage point: certain details appear in a new light, yet the subject remains the same.