Physical and Release: 17 July 2026
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Among the many constellations of Bachian chamber music, the one that gathers around the traverso possesses a particular fascination. The instrument, relatively new to Bach and becoming decisive above all in the Leipzig years, introduces into his writing a quality of breath, of timbral suppleness and of linear eloquence that coincides neither with the severity of the organ nor with the brilliance of the violin. The programme of this disc, bringing together Sonata in C major BWV 1033, Sonata in E minor BWV 1034, Sonata in E major BWV 1035 and Sonata in G major BWV 1039, explicitly placed in relation to BWV 1027, does not offer a mere anthology of pages for flute. It proposes instead an itinerary into the Bachian workshop, where the relation between melody and basso continuo, between form and version, between attribution and transmission, becomes part of musical meaning itself. In these works the bass does not serve merely as accompaniment, but argues, contradicts, sustains and at times even leads. The flute, for its part, does not confine itself to singing. It thinks in sound, with a naturalness that in Bach always possesses something architectural.
The collection also possesses an inner coherence that is less immediately apparent, yet decisive. At the extremities stand C major and G major, open keys, almost perspectival in character; at the centre lies the dyad of E minor and E major, as though the programme wished to trace a trajectory from initial penumbra to utmost clarity, only then to reopen the discourse within the spaciousness of the trio sonata. On the level of the sources, too, the itinerary is eloquent. None of these pages presents itself as a simply given textual object. BWV 1033 lives beneath the sign of uncertain attribution, BWV 1034 and BWV 1035 are entrusted to copies and to non-autograph traditions, and BWV 1039 can be fully understood only in relation to its constellation of versions. Philology, in this instance, is an essential component, for it reveals a Bach whose chamber music can pass from one hand to another, from one instrument to another, from one function to another, without forfeiting its identity.
Sonata in C major BWV 1033 immediately introduces the question of the threshold. Tradition transmits it in a manuscript by the young Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who attributes it to his father, and the subsequent eighteenth-century confirmation has prevented the work from slipping altogether outside the Bachian catalogue. Yet the simplicity of the bass, the composite nature of certain materials, and the impression that at least part of the flute writing may originally have had another destination have nourished a discussion that has never wholly subsided. Rather than an obstacle, this uncertainty illumines the domestic and workshop-like climate in which the page appears to have come into being. The Andante – Presto and the Allegro possess the fluency of an almost improvised discourse, the Adagio opens an expressive centre of absorbed melancholy, while the two Menuets restore the music to a measure of elegant sociability. One senses here a Bach of the borderland, or perhaps a Bach filtered through the filial hand, yet the quality of the melodic profile remains unmistakable. The sonata lives, indeed, by virtue of its very ambiguity, like a finely chiselled miniature whose fascination is born also of the penumbra surrounding it.
With Sonata in E minor BWV 1034 the picture grows clearer. The earliest sources place it in the initial Leipzig years, and its formal profile, slow-fast-slow-fast, clearly binds it to the tradition of the church sonata. Yet in Bach formal genealogy is always living matter. Already in the Adagio ma non tanto the flute line, traversed by sighs and by slight dolorous delays, confronts a bass of astonishing autonomy. The ensuing Allegro, constructed upon an arpeggiated energy recalling the Italian violinistic inheritance, renders it yet more evident that here the continuo is not a mere backdrop but a true interlocutor. The Andante entrusts to the flute a long, almost improvised song, stretched above a regular motion in the bass, while the finale resumes that impulse in a form tauter and more impassioned. More than a sonata for flute with accompaniment, BWV 1034 thus appears as a duet of high conversation, in which the traverso and the continuo divide between them the burden of thought. It is one of the points at which Bach shows most clearly that he had understood the new instrument as the principle of a new kind of writing.
The relation between BWV 1034 and BWV 1035 also deserves to be heard as a diptych. The two sonatas share the same tonal fundamental, yet they belong to different stylistic worlds. The first still looks, with full awareness, towards the order of the church sonata and the Italian lesson; the second absorbs the new Berlin sensibility, the fragmentation of affective gesture, the taste for a more mobile and psychological cantabile. Between the two there runs almost an entire history of the German eighteenth century, condensed into the voice of the traverso. The very same instrument that in BWV 1034 argues with austere composure becomes in BWV 1035 more insinuating, more changeful, closer to an inward utterance. It is one of the great merits of the programme to lay bare such a transformation without forcing it, allowing the quality of the writing itself to narrate the passage from the Bach of full maturity to the Bach of the final years.
Sonata in E major BWV 1035 belongs, indeed, to the late Bach, by then close to the Berlin world and potentially in contact with the milieu of Frederick II. The sources connect it with good probability to the visit undertaken in 1741 and to the figure of Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, the King’s valet de chambre, an amateur flautist of cultivation and one well integrated into the taste of the Prussian court. Such a context illuminates the physiognomy of the piece. Here Bach opens himself with singular naturalness to the inflections of galant language and of Empfindsamkeit, without in any way renouncing his own constructive authority. The first movement and the Siciliana seem to belong to a sphere of sensibility more vulnerable, more nuanced, almost close to the new North German aesthetic; the second and fourth movements retain instead a rhythmic clarity and brilliance more directly bound to the late Baroque manner. Some scholars have even read the entire sonata as a sort of miniature suite, with prelude and internalised dances. In any case, the result is one of the most subtle regions of late Bachian chamber music. The key of E major, rendered particularly eloquent also by the technical resources of the Quantzian flute in use at court, causes the page to resound in a limpid, noble and delicately sensitive light.
The conclusion with Sonata in G major BWV 1039, significantly presented in the track listing in relation to BWV 1027 and entrusted to flute, viola da gamba and basso continuo, leads the discourse into one of the most fascinating zones of mobility within the Bach catalogue. Scholarship agrees in holding that the version for two flutes and continuo and that for viola da gamba and obbligato harpsichord both refer back to a lost earlier stage, perhaps a trio sonata for another instrumental combination. What matters, even more than chronological priority, is the extraordinary readiness of this music to pass from one sounding body to another. The page breathes like a true trio sonata, constructed upon the equilibrium of the upper voices and upon the fertility of the bass, yet it already contains that cantabile tension that would make its migration towards the viola da gamba seem entirely natural. In the opening Adagio, in the Allegro ma non presto, in the collected Adagio e piano and in the final movement, here brought close to the lesson of BWV 1027, Bach shows how chamber writing may preserve its identity even while changing incarnation.
Heard in this succession, the four sonatas delineate a portrait of Bach for flute that is less obvious and perhaps more revealing than would emerge from a purely canonical anthology. BWV 1033 opens with its problematic and domestic aura, almost like a half-open door onto the domestic workshop of the Bach family. BWV 1034 confers upon the traverso a full dialectical dignity, making of the continuo a partner of equal weight. BWV 1035 brings into the writing the late luminosity, the contact with Berlin, the permeability to new styles. BWV 1039, finally, extends the discourse from the sonata to the principle of version, of transmigration, of form surviving by changing its skin. For this reason too the programme possesses a strong hidden unity. From the almost subdued bass of BWV 1033 to the argumentative fertility of BWV 1039, the whole disc may be heard as a meditation upon the responsibility of the continuo, which in Bach coincides with the memory of harmony itself. The overall result is a book on musical conversation. Here every voice listens and is listened to, every line bears within itself harmonic memory, every movement is born of a measure that never oppresses song. In this art of supervised breath, of density without weight, of clarity nourished by shadow, the traverso finds one of its earliest and highest European consecrations. Bach speaks here with an accent less monumental than that of the great sacred or keyboard architectures, yet no less profound. He speaks as one who knows that intimacy, in chamber music, may preserve a form of perfectly sovereign greatness.
Giuliano Marco Mattioli © 2026
Francesco Padovani, Transverse Flute
He graduated in flute at "C. Pollini" conservatory situated in Padova under the guidance of Prof. Clementine Hoogendoorn Scimone. Then he studied with L. Malpigli, R. Guiot, P. Gallois, and with P. Zejfart for chamber music of the Baroque period. He graduated with full marks in transverse flute at the Conservatory of Verona under the guidance of Maestro. M. Castellani. He obtained the 1st prize at the VII National Chamber Music Review in Genova. He has played in Italy and abroad with various chamber and orchestral ensembles such as: "Trio Devienne", "Academy of the Magnificent Community", Baroque Orchestra "Academia de li Musici", Orchestra of Padova and Veneto, Chamber Orchestra of Mantova, Ensemble baroque "Musical flowers", "La Bande des hautbois du Roy", "Tritono Ensemble", "Festina Lente" and others. He recorded as a soloist some CDs containing the 5th Brandenburg concert, the “Triplo” concert by J.S. Bach, some Venetian Baroque concerts (T. Albinoni and A. Vivaldi), chamber compositions by E.G. Baron; chamber compositions J.B. de Boismortier. In the orchestra he participated in recordings of chamber works ("Arianna" by B. Marcello), oratories ("The Resurrection of Lazzaro" by A. Callegari), masses (A. Galuppi); in collaboration with the “Ergo Cantemus” choir directed by F.M. Bressan, some pieces of contemporary music and other compositions for flute and piano. He did some radio and television recordings (Bayerrischer Rundfunk, Rai Tre Emilia-Romagna and local broadcasters). He is the author of a flute study method.The Prince was a Calvinist: consequently, the need for elaborated church music was nil at his court, but this did not prevent him from being particularly fond of music in se. Interestingly, therefore, the largest and most significant component of Bach’s instrumental output dates from the Cöthen years. But while the dates are certain as concerns some milestones of Bach’s oeuvre (such as, for example, the Well-Tempered Clavier, dated 1722 by Bach himself on the autograph’s titlepage), on other occasions there is room for debate. This applies to several of the works recorded in this Da Vinci Classics album. Indeed, in some cases, it is not only the work’s composition date to be disputed, but even its authorship, as we will shortly see.
This does not detract from the absolute beauty and refinement of all works recorded here, which bear witness to the relatively recent mania for the transverse flute, which had conquered Germany in the early eighteenth century. Indeed, up to the time of his appointment in Cöthen, Bach seems to have been interested rather in the recorder than in the transverse flute. The Damascus moment for the latter instrument is generally thought to coincide with his visit to Dresden in 1717, and the possibility he had there to listen to a great performer of this instrument.
Certainly, during his appointment in Cöthen Bach did explore the potential of the transverse flute, and would quickly master all of its resources, both technical and expressive, creating magnificent works for this instrument. He would employ the transverse flute as a solo orchestral instrument (for instance, in the superb Overture/Orchestral Suite no. 2, or as a concertante instrument in countless arias from his later Cantatas and Passions), as a solo instrument with (and even without) accompaniment, and as an appreciated chamber music partner. Indeed, his Partita in A minor for unaccompanied solo flute is considered as a pioneering example of this genre, and as a ground-breaking artistic realisation.
On the other hand, only occasionally are Bach’s works for the transverse flute uniquely playable on this instrument. It is an established fact that, from the one side, Bach put into relief the distinctive traits of all instruments he was writing for; but, from the other, this only rarely bound his compositions to a particular instrumental combination. He was the first to create countless arrangements and transcriptions of his works, and, in the following years and centuries, many more musicians understood that his music preserved its beauty even when its instrumental destination was changed. In particular, there was a certain flexibility and interchangeability between the flute and other “melodic” instruments: if this is not exceedingly surprising when the other viable instrument is the violin, it becomes much more unusual when the flute either replaces, or is replaced by, the viola da gamba, which has an utterly different texture and range.
For instance, this flexibility is demonstrated by the fate of what we now know as Bach’s BWV 1027. This work was restructured in at least three versions: one for two transverse flutes and continuo (now indicated as BWV 1039), one for “harpsichord and gamba”, and finally one for pedal-organ or -harpsichord (this latter version is probably spurious, though originating from Bach’s circle).
The sources of this work allow us to date it to the late Leipzig period (1740s), but this does not rule out the (likely) possibility that the Leipzig works be in turn the elaboration of earlier compositions. In Cöthen, Bach had certainly been stimulated to consider the potential of the viola da gamba by the presence of the famed virtuoso Christian Ferdinand Abel, though arguably the version for two transverse flutes predates that for gamba. However, recent scholarship tends to propose a late dating for this Sonata, and to ascribe it to the Leipzig years. It is a work in the traditional Church Sonata form: this implies a four-movement articulation, with the usual alternation slow/quick/slow/quick in the movements’ order and the elaborate polyphonic writing in the fugato finale. Indeed, the contrapuntal texture is rich and complex throughout the work, which therefore definitely belongs in the ranks of the pieces with concertante harpsichord rather than in those for solo instrument with continuo.
Problems arise also when considering Flute Sonata in G minor BWV 1020, whose authorship is far from univocally established. Consensus now seems to gather around the figure of Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, but other attributions are still being discussed. Even the instrumental destination of this piece is controversial, since it is indicated for the violin with obbligato harpsichord, and of course it can be played with great satisfaction on the violin. However, playing it on the transverse flute seems to be more reasonable, since, oddly, the violin’s fourth string would remain silent throughout the performance, while the piece’s range corresponds more closely to that of the flute.
In this case, the compositional scheme is that of the Italian chamber sonata (in three movements, with the outer two being lively and briskly paced, and the middle movement slow and meditative). Italianate traits are found throughout the piece, and particularly in the last movement, which seems to draw many lessons from Vivaldi’s music. Certainly, the result is a very charming and brilliant, with a fascinating combination of dazzling and contemplative elements.
Dating doubts also involve B-minor Sonata BWV 1030. Initially assigned to Cöthen (but it is still possible that an earlier version in G-minor did originate in Cöthen), it is now generally thought to have originated in Leipzig. Indeed, if the Cöthen court provided ceaseless stimuli to Bach’s creativity in terms of instrumental music, Leipzig was no less attractive. In particular, in Leipzig Bach could count on a plethora of young musicians (among whom his best pupils and his sons) who were glad to participate in the soirees of the Collegium Musicum, which took place at the Cafè Zimmermann. Among such musicians was certainly one of Bach’s children, Johann Gottfried Bernhard (1715-1739), who was a skilled flutist and might have encouraged his father to write for his instrument. The balance between flute and harpsichord is complex in this Sonata. For instance, the first movement reproduces the structure of the solo concerto: the flute is treated as a solo instrument, and the harpsichord’s interventions are shaped on the ritornello technique of the coeval concertos. A similar contrast between protagonist and background is found in the delightful slow movement. However, the remainder of the Sonata attributes a fully-fledged concertante role to the harpsichord too, and the piece effectively turns into something in the genre of a Triosonata. Still, the overall impression is that of a comparatively relaxed composition, which does not despise some traits of the new styles which would supplant the Baroque polyphonic rigour in the subsequent years.
Not even BWV 1031 stands clear of scholarly debates. In this case, an alternative authorship has been suggested, again by Carl Philipp Emanuel, though currently scholars tend to consider it as Johann Sebastian’s work. Another possible candidate for its authorship has been individuated in Johann Joachim Quantz, probably the greatest flutist of the era and the author of a fundamental treatise on flute playing and performance in general. Though there are similarities between this Sonata and an earlier composition by Quantz (QV2:18), the most likely hypothesis is that Bach took inspiration from his colleague’s work and its structure, but still investing his own creativity in full in its composition.
The centrepiece of the Sonata is certainly its enchanted and enchanting Siciliano, the central movement, with its exquisite melody and its nostalgic, melancholic style. It is written in a key which is rather common for Sicilianos (in G minor), but which is unexpected within an E-flat major Sonata. Still, the return of E-flat after the touching Siciliano further enhances the impression of being “back to life”, with the virtuosity and utter excitement of the concluding Allegro.
Once more, we do not know with any certainty when BWV 1032 was written, but, in this case, the choice seems to be among a narrower field of possibilities. The terminus ante quem is 1736, corresponding to the manuscript’s explicit declaration. This autograph is the only preserved original source, and it was fortuitously recovered in an antique shop in Breslau. Thence it was moved to Berlin, to Cracow, and back to Berlin again. Unfortunately, it lacks about 46 bars in the first movement, which were cut out from the score and have been lost. Here too the slow movement’s key is unexpected (A minor), but the major mode returns triumphantly in the complex imitative Finale.
By employing the organ rather than the harpsichord throughout this CD, these well-known works acquire a novel inspiration; the unique blending of two instruments which have a similar principle in the production of sound but an entirely different technique confers both unity and variety to the performance.
Together, and in spite of the many doubts concerning their creation and composition, these works represent an astonishingly beautiful itinerary within the transverse flute’s “voice”, which resounds in its fullest palette: from joy to pain, from excitement to melancholia, from enthusiasm to elegy.
Chiara Bertoglio © 2022
Francesco Padovani, Transverse Flute
He graduated in flute at "C. Pollini" conservatory situated in Padova under the guidance of Prof. Clementine Hoogendoorn Scimone. Then he studied with L. Malpigli, R. Guiot, P. Gallois, and with P. Zejfart for chamber music of the Baroque period. He graduated with full marks in transverse flute at the Conservatory of Verona under the guidance of Maestro. M. Castellani. He obtained the 1st prize at the VII National Chamber Music Review in Genova. He has played in Italy and abroad with various chamber and orchestral ensembles such as: "Trio Devienne", "Academy of the Magnificent Community", Baroque Orchestra "Academia de li Musici", Orchestra of Padova and Veneto, Chamber Orchestra of Mantova, Ensemble baroque "Musical flowers", "La Bande des hautbois du Roy", "Tritono Ensemble", "Festina Lente" and others. He recorded as a soloist some CDs containing the 5th Brandenburg concert, the “Triplo” concert by J.S. Bach, some Venetian Baroque concerts (T. Albinoni and A. Vivaldi), chamber compositions by E.G. Baron; chamber compositions J.B. de Boismortier. In the orchestra he participated in recordings of chamber works ("Arianna" by B. Marcello), oratories ("The Resurrection of Lazzaro" by A. Callegari), masses (A. Galuppi); in collaboration with the “Ergo Cantemus” choir directed by F.M. Bressan, some pieces of contemporary music and other compositions for flute and piano. He did some radio and television recordings (Bayerrischer Rundfunk, Rai Tre Emilia-Romagna and local broadcasters). He is the author of a flute study method.
Roberto Loreggian, Organ, Harpsichord
Having achieved, with the highest grades, a diploma in organ and harpsichord, he perfected his talents at the Conservatory of The Hague (NL) under the direction of Ton Koopman. His activities led him to perform in the most important halls: Parco della Musica - Rome, Sala Verdi - Milan, Hercules Saal - Munich (Germany), Teatro Colon - Buenos Aires, Kioi Hall - Tokyo... at highly important festivals: MITO, Sagra Malatestiana (Malatestiana Festival), Pergolesi Spontini Festival, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Serate Musicali.. performing both as a soloist accompanist and soloist with numerous orchestras, Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Chamber Orchestra of Mantova, the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, I Virtuosi Italiani, L'Arte Dell'Arco, I Barocchisti... He has recorded numerous CDs for record labels such as Chandos, Tactus, Arts... which have been internationally acclaimed. He has recorded the complete collection of keyboard music by G. Frescobaldi for the label 'Brilliant' winning the 'National Award for Classic Music Track 2009', for the same label he recorded the complete keyboard music of A. Gabrieli, the complete Harpsichord concerts of B. Galuppi and the harpsichord music of G. F. Haendel. His recordings devoted to harpsichord music by B. Pasquini (Chandos Chaconne) and by G. B. Ferrini (Tactus) received the award 'Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik'. He teaches at the Conservatory 'C. Pollini' in Padova, Italy.
Francesco Galligioni
He is a cellist who studied at the ‘C. Pollini’ Conservatoire in Padua with Gianni Chiampan. After completing his Diploma, he took part in masterclasses with Michael Flaksman and Teodora Campagnaro. He then studied with Franco Maggio Ormezowski at the Accademia Nazionale di S. Cecilia in Rome, where he was awarded a scholarship and obtained a further Diploma in just two years. Francesco has taken part in courses specializing in baroque cello held by W. Vestidello and G. Nasillo, and worked with soloists and conductors of international renown, such as Anner Bylsma, Giuliano Carmignola, Cecilia Bartoli, Max Emmanuel Cencic, Magdalena Kozena, Sergio Azzolini, Sara Mingardo, Victoria Mullova, Angelika Kirschlagher, Andrea Marcon, Federico Guglielmo, Sir J. E. Gardiner, Diego Fasolis, Gautier Capuchon, Pedro Halffter, Bob Van Asperen, Michael Radulescu, Gustav Leonhardt, Christopher Hogwood. His passion for early music led him to study viola da gamba with Paolo Biordi at the Conservatoire in Florence, where he obtained the Diploma in 2004. Francesco has recorded for ARCHIV, Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, CPO, Arts, ORF, Chandos, Brilliant, Naxos, and Sony Classical. His concerts as a soloist have been broadcast by WDR, ORF, SWR2, and MDR, as well as by ABC, NPR, BBC3, RDP, and Japanese television while touring in Japan in September 2005. In recent years, Galligioni has also explored contemporary music on period instruments, playing works by composers such as Philip Glass, Giovanni Sollima, G. Bersanetti, and J. Tavener. In 2011, he was the soloist in the Vivaldi Concerto RV531 with cellist Gautier Capuchon. Galligioni's recordings of Vivaldi's Complete Cello Concertos and Six Printed Sonatas were released by Brilliant Classics, as well as Salvatore Lanzetti's Printed Sonatas, J.M.C. Dall'Abaco's Capricci a Violoncello Solo, and Giovanni Benedetto Platti's Cello Sonatas. FraBernardo Records released his recording of J.S. Bach's Cello Suites. He teaches at the Conservatory 'A. Pedrollo' in Vicenza, Italy.
Johann Sebastian Bach: (b Eisenach, 21 March 1685, d Leipzig; 28 July 1750). Composer and organist. The most important member of the family, his genius combined outstanding performing musicianship with supreme creative powers in which forceful and original inventiveness, technical mastery and intellectual control are perfectly balanced. While it was in the former capacity, as a keyboard virtuoso, that in his lifetime he acquired an almost legendary fame, it is the latter virtues and accomplishments, as a composer, that by the end of the 18th century earned him a unique historical position. His musical language was distinctive and extraordinarily varied, drawing together and surmounting the techniques, the styles and the general achievements of his own and earlier generations and leading on to new perspectives which later ages have received and understood in a great variety of ways.
The first authentic posthumous account of his life, with a summary catalogue of his works, was put together by his son Carl Philipp Emanuel and his pupil J.F. Agricola soon after his death and certainly before March 1751 (published as Nekrolog, 1754). J.N. Forkel planned a detailed Bach biography in the early 1770s and carefully collected first-hand information on Bach, chiefly from his two eldest sons; the book appeared in 1802, by when the Bach Revival had begun and various projected collected editions of Bach’s works were underway; it continues to serve, together with the 1754 obituary and the other 18th-century documents, as the foundation of Bach biography.
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Physical and Release: 17 July 2026
Physical Release: 17 July 2026 Digital Release: 24 July 2026
Physical and Release: 17 July 2026
