J.S. Bach: Complete Flute Sonatas

Emmanuel Pahud follows his release of newly composed concertos by Marc André Dalbavie, Michael Jarrell and Matthias Pintscher with a programme comprising the complete flute sonatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition to the sonatas BWV 1020, 1030-1035 and the Trio Sonata BWV 1039, Pahud performs the popular Partita for Solo Flute in A Minor, BWV 1013. His partner, at the harpsichord, is the renowned period instrument soloist and conductor Trevor Pinnock. Bach is believed to have composed his flute sonatas BWV 1030-1035 between the 1720s and 1741, following the innovation of the transverse flute, the instrument that superseded the recorder. After Johann Joachim Quantz demonstrated the new instrument throughout Europe in the early 1720s, Bach celebrated its technical and expressive qualities and newly available tonal colours in this series of sonatas, which are among his best known chamber works. He also featured the flute in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 and in the Benedictus of the Mass in B Minor. The first three of the six sonatas, BWV 1030-1032, are three-movement obligato sonatas in which Bach wrote out the right hand notes to the accompaniment; BWV 1033-1035, by contrast, are continuo sonatas in four movements in which the composer provided only the bass line of the accompaniment. Jonathan Manson is the cellist in the continuo sonatas.