Sonatas and Partitas

Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Violin Solo are among the most famous masterpieces of their kind. Unlike the closely related Suites for Violoncello Solo, the violin solos have survived in an autograph manuscript of the composer on the basis of which alone a largely reliable musical text is available. However, this manuscript is a copy of previous draft copies or even further fair copies of the composer. Wiener Urtext Edition uses an early copyist's copy from Köthen as a secondary source which has not been valued very highly as a source until now. Despite its closeness to the extant autograph, one cannot rule out the possibility that this copy might be traced back to another original manuscript by Bach. At any rate, some obvious mistakes of the extant fair copy can be clarified on the basis of its text; in addition, it provides a number of articulations not indicated elsewhere (some even with alternatives) which are examples of how these works can be performed according to their time of origin. In the Notes of Interpretation, Dagmar Glüxam explains the relationship between the musical-rhetorical contents of Bach's musical text and their adequate performance, thus showing how absurd many a performance instruction of established interpretive editions is.