This disc focuses on
the trio sonata in Bach's oeuvre. Only
one piece is performed in its presently
known form, the Sonata for violin and
basso continuo. One may ask why this
piece is included. In the booklet William
Yeoman writes that "its texture is quite
clearly that of a trio sonata". So most
of the pieces on this disc are arrangements
of some sort. As Bach himself quite
often reworked his compositions there
is no objection against making and performing
such arrangements. What is decisive
is whether the result is convincing
and whether the arrangement does justice
to the character of the original.
The basic idea behind
the form of the trio sonata is the collaboration
and competition of two equal upper voices
over a basso continuo. In his book Versuch
einer Anweisung die Flûte traversiere
zu spielen Johann Joachim Quantz
writes that in a trio "one scarcely
can guess which of the two voices is
the first". Here the balance between
the two upper voices is a recurrent
problem. The disc starts with a trio
sonata which was originally written
for two flutes. Here the recorder is
no match for the violin, in particular
in its lower range. In the two other
trio sonatas the balance is better,
mainly because of the higher tessitura
of the part which the recorder has to
play. These works were written for the
organ and intended as study material
for Bach's eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann.
But as it seems they are partly reworkings
of older material for melody instruments
there is nothing against going into
the opposite direction. In general they
work rather well, although I would have
preferred another instrument instead
of the recorder. One has to consider
that Bach in his chamber music – at
least what is left of it – never wrote
anything for the recorder.
The performance of
the chorale arrangements isn't always
satisfying either. Some involve reworkings
of existing material, for example from
his cantatas. And again, going in the
opposite direction could be interesting.
Some of Bach's organ works have the
texture of a trio, as titles such as
"trio super" would seem to indicate.
The difference between the organ and
this ensemble is that on the organ one
can choose the stops in such a way that
all parts are clearly audible. In 'Wachet
auf, ruft uns die Stimme' the chorale
melody is played on the recorder, and
this results in too much of the detail
being subsumed into Bach’s polyphonic
web. Where a treble recorder is used,
as in 'Allein Gott in der Höh sei
Ehr' this produces much better results.
On the whole the playing
of the Palladian Ensemble is accetpable,
although I find the lack of a keyboard
instrument in the basso continuo regrettable.
The combination of viola da gamba and
archlute is insufficient to drive the
upper voices on. Sometimes the tempo
is sketchy. The middle movement from
the Trio Sonata No. 4 is too slow: played
like an adagio rather than an andante.
The performance of the vivace from the
Sonata BWV 1021 is pretty tame. Another
point which struck me is that the violin
fails to sound as brilliant as it could
be; probably a matter of recording technique.
To sum up: the concept
of this disc is quite interesting, but
its realisation is less than ideal and
it does not always do justice to the
character of Bach's compositions.
Johan van Veen
for details
Palladian Ensemble (Pamela Thorby (recorder);
Rodolfo Richter (violin); Susanne Heinrich
(bass viol); William Carter, (archlute,
guitar)) 
