The
Bach flute-and-continuo sonatas presented on this two-disc set fall into two groups. The ones on the first set are, by general consensus,
Bach's own work, while the connections with
Bach of the second group are more tenuous. All the pieces were listed in the
Bach Werke Verzeichnis from which
Bach's works take their conventional catalog numbers, but some of them have been deauthenticated as new information has come to light. Paradoxically, it's the second disc that's of the most interest here. The notes by keyboardist Ingomar Rainer go into quite a bit of detail about these pieces and advance an intriguing hypothesis about them that is in turn convincingly represented in the performances. The background is that the first three works on disc two are thought to be works by
Bach's students -- his son
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach in the first two cases and a composer names
J.C. Altnikol in the third -- but written with considerable input from the master himself. Rainer points to thematic linkages among them, and between these pieces and other music by the elder
Bach, and he suggests that they resulted from a hypothetical compositional exercise, or at least from a phase of
Bach's teaching activity. These three pieces are supplemented by two genuine
Bach works, but those in which music has been recycled from one medium to another. The whole package is fascinating when listened to with all this in mind: it seems to capture the atmosphere of the
Bach workshop. The music by the younger composers is much more modern in style than that of most of
J.S. Bach's works (hear especially the concluding minuets of the Flute Sonata in C major, BWV 1033), and you can almost hear the father exhorting his son to add contrapuntal details. The golden-toned flute of Austrian flutist
Hansgeorg Schmeiser fits this music well, whereas on the first disc it seems a bit lush when set against Rainer's tough Flemish harpsichord; the disc as a whole is a hybrid between historical and contemporary performance styles. The sound environment is close-up and physical, but not excessively noisy. For the listener interested in
Bach and his world, and specifically in the relationship between
Bach and his sons and other students, this will be an intriguing addition to the literature.