Ben Dollman Baroque Violin

PROGRAM NOTES

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

SONATA NO. 3 IN C MAJOR, BWV 1005
Largo & Allegro assai

When piecing together the events of Johann Sebastian Bach’s life, historians and Baroque musicophiles alike often refer to the exchange of letters between Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Nikolaus Forkel that would become the foundation of JS Bach’s first biography.

Little did CPE Bach or Forkel know that future generations would come to venerate both the memory and music of Johann Sebastian. Indeed, judging from their discussions regarding the value and cost of the late composer’s hand-copied manuscripts, the now underwhelming figures mentioned in the letters pale in comparison with today’s estimations of their value:

… My late father’s portrait costs nothing. The music by him you received you may return at your convenience since I do not need it so urgently. There are no more copies to be had of the things of my father’s that were engraved; even the plates are no longer in existence. What I have – namely, the First and Third Parts [of the Clavier -Übung] – I shall be glad to let you have, bound, for copying, or even for purchase. The material of both of them used to cost 6 thlr. If you do not wish to copy them, I will let you have both parts, cleanly bound and in very good condition, for 8 thlr. I have the manuscript for the deceased, and I can get along with that, and you have the copy he used to have for his own use. But you must not feel any compunction about it…
CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH, HAMBURG, AUGUST 9, 1774

The attention to detail and time required to copy, by hand, the large collections of JS Bach’s music cannot be underestimated. On its own, the Sonata No. 3 in C major remains one of the most ambitious in scale and scope of the entire collection of sonatas and partitas for solo violin. Except for the monumental chaconne at the end of the Partita No. 2 in D minor, no other movement compares to the fugue that directly precedes both the Largo and Allegro assai performed here by the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra’s Principal Second Violin, Ben Dollman.

WHAT TO LISTEN FOR

For the third time in the Bach Series on Brandenburg One, the same Sarabande & Double from Partita No. 1 in B minor is being performed, but Ben Dollman is presenting the work on the instrument for which Bach actually wrote, the solo violin. Here we are treated to both the initial Sarabande, set in a slow triple metre based on four-bar phrases, and its Double, a variation in continual motion of the first melody.

By writing a double for each of the dances in this Partita, Bach has provided composers and performers alike with an important ‘how-to’ guide for creating variations. With each section being repeated (both the initial dance and the double that is), Bach also invites the performer to add variety to his notes by ornamenting them, a task Ben clearly revels in.

This very musical performance is indicative of Ben’s great level of experience with Baroque music. His instrument produces a sweeter tone when compared with Monique O’Dea’s rendition on the Baroque viola, all the while tempered by Bach’s harmonic shifts and diminished chords yearning for resolution. This truly is a masterclass of variation; a real dialogue between composer and performer 300 years apart.

Program Notes: Joanna Butler & Hugh Ronzani, 2021
Image Credit: Oliver Miller, 2021

BACH SERIES PRESENTING PARTNER