Like father, like sons
Musical instrument nomenclature in the 17th and 18th centuries is anything but straightforward. In German, Dutch, Spanish, and English-speaking lands, string instruments had vernacular, often colloquial names (some Germans called the cello a Baß Geige, or “bass violin,” which is what the English called it and which, indeed, it is). These instruments emerged in Italy and eventually, Italian names remained, though sometimes transformed. Every bowed instrument is a viol; Did you know that the violin is actually a viola da braccio—a viol of the shoulder? Hard to argue with that. Violino means “small viol,” just as Violone, or the instrument we associate most frequently with the double bass, means “large viol.” Sometimes, apparently for fun, a cello is called a violone. Violoncello, the cello’s full name, means “small large violin,” and violoncello piccolo, which is the instrument Guy Fishman plays for this concert, means “tiny small large violin.”

Johann Sebastian Bach composed three sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord, most likely in Leipzig at some time during the late 1730s or early 1740s. He composed Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt (God so loved the world) in 1725 for the second day of Pentecost. In has a unique structure among Bach’s church cantatas, in that it begins with a chorale and ends with a complex choral movement.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788) was the fifth child and second surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. An  influential composer in his day, C.P.E. worked at a time of transition between his father’s Baroque style and the Classical period that followed it. He composed three sonatas for the viola da gamba, including the “Sonata in D major” being performed this evening.

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach was the fifth son of Johann Sebastian Bach, sometimes referred to as the “Bückeburg Bach.” Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach wrote keyboard sonatas, symphonies, oratorios, choir pieces and motets, operas and songs. Like his half-brother C.P.E., Johann Christoph is considered a transitional figure. He composed some works in the style of the high Baroque, some in the galant (a movement that emphasized light elegance in place of the Baroque period’s compositional strictures and sense of grandeur), and still others that combine elements of the two, along with traits of the emerging classical style.

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FESTIVAL EVENTS

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• The Complete Brandenburg Concertos
• Jerrick Cavagnaro: Organ Recital
• Threads: Pius Cheung, Goldberg Variations
• All in the Familie: JS Bach & Sons Chamber Music
• Artist Spotlight: Gene Stenger
• Tuning In: JS Bach's Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 61
• Follia & Fantasy: The Art of the Trio Sonata
• Tuning In: JS Bach's Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10
• Mozart at the Keyboard: The Virtuoso Genius
• Mozart Requiem

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