Concert: Adriana Alcaide (ES), Ana Marija Krajnc (SI)
Ticket order:
Access: transport
There are excellent train connections from Celje to Ljubljana and Maribor even in the evening after the concert.
Artists’ message to visitors: As the title of the music itself, “Sonatas for violin and cembalo obbligato”, is an “obbligato” and mandatory repertoire for all music lovers, Bach lovers and most of all for beauty lovers. “Sense and sensibility”, as Jane Austen would say, is the motor of these incredible instrumental works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Deep connoisseur of both instruments, he wrote this set of six sonatas during 1717 and 1723, and he achieved to create the most amazing moments of his works. His inspiration for this music has no limits and surprises constantly the audience with beauty, diversity of colours, a rich change of tonalities, and great development of the counterpoint between the two instruments. Each one of the sonatas is written in a different affect, showing all the expressive tools of both instruments, the violin, and the harpsichord, what helps to connect directly with the audience. Our main goal is to overcome all the demanding technique of both instruments, to be able to communicate the spirit of each piece and share with the listeners all the musical magnificence of these works, composed in Köthen, as the Brandenburg concertos.
Adriana Alcaide: My artistic mission for solo performance is to create a space of beauty, peacefulness, and silence within this noisy, stressed and out of focus society; to prioritize emotional and spiritual values, instead of materialistic and “use and throw” objects. Music and the essence of sound can transform all of us, making us conscious about what it’s important and what it’s superfluous, helping to connect with ourselves and with the rest of the beings. Music is a human invention that tries to imitate the perfection and beauty of nature and for this reason it approaches us to our natural state, we are one part more of this big creation, not higher than any other alive being. So finally, music it shows to us the essential modesty, which I am constantly looking for.
Ana Marija Krajnc: I might have been made in a way that I want to do music, that I want to create it and share it with whoever wants to listen. It is simply what makes me want to get up in the morning, what makes me excited. When I don't play, I think about playing. I can never understand if I have played well, or not, it seems way to complex and the more I think about it the reception of the audience depends a lot on people's own emotional states, as well as my own. I believe the most ideal transfer of emotions happens when I can forget myself completely, and play as I was in a trance state, accepting all the risks that come with that, which become unimportant because my fate after the musical moment fades into deep irrelevance.
Event programme
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):
Sonatas for violin and cembalo obbligato (second part)
The six sonatas BWV 1014-1019 for violin and harpsichord obbligato by Johann Sebastian Bach are one of the first examples using the harpsichord as a soloist instrument, together with the violin, used to have a continuo role within the baroque style, here the harpsichord gets the same technical and musical standard as the violin. These pieces introduce at that historical moment the trio sonata form, which will be extremely used afterwards by the most important composers in music history. With a richer structure, developed compositional and expressive tools, Bach explores the infinite language of both instruments. An opportunity to enjoy the most beautiful pieces by this composer.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):
Sei Sounate / à / Cembalo certato è / Violino Solo col / Basso per Viola da Gamba accompagnato / se piace / Composte / da / Giov. Sebast. Bach
Sonata 4 (BWV 1017)
Siciliano / Allegro / Adagio ma non tanto / Allegro assai
Sonata 3 (BWV 1016)
adaggio / Allegro / Adagio ma non tanto / Allegro
Sonata 1 a Violino Solo e Cembalo Certato di JSBach (BWV 1014)
Adagio / Allegro / Andante / Allegro
Little after the death of Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara, Johann Sebastian wrote the most incredible instrumental pieces within his production; the Second Partita for violin solo BWV 1004 is an example, with the Ciaccona closing the whole piece and dedicated especially to the death of Maria Barbara. In the coming months, as well in Cöthen, he composed the Brandenburg concertos, the Clavier Büchlein for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedeman Bach, and at the same period he married his second wife Anna Magdalena, writing for her another Clavier Büchlein, a compilation of pieces for the keyboard, and a bit later it will appear Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book 1 and the two-parts and three-parts inventions and sinfonias for the same instrument.
Supposed to be written from 1720 and 1723, but not sure when exactly and during Bach’s stay in Cöthen, the complete set of sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord were composed in trio sonata form, a quite new way of composition, according to the style of that time. Because of Bach’s deep knowledge about both instruments, with these pieces he explored and depicted the whole technical and expressive tools of both instruments, making of this music one of the most demanding repertoires for musicians, even nowadays.
As a trio sonata form, violin covers one of the upper singing lines, while the right hand of the harpsichord takes the other upper melodic line, and with the left hand of the harpsichord he provides the bass line. As most of the musical proposals from Bach were quite experimental and daring according to the historical moment he was living in, this time, with these sonatas he forgets about the role of basso continuo, normally given to the harpsichord and he creates 6 full pieces, where this instrument is treated as a soloist, as the violin.
The five sonatas BWV 1014-1018 are all in four movements following the sonata da chiesa style, with a slow first movement, followed by a fast movement, then another slow movement before the final allegro. The fast movements are all based in a fugue form. In general, the first fast movements of the sonatas are written as tutti fugues and the closing movements as concerto allegros, except in the fifth sonata BWV 1018 in F minor, and the third sonata BWV 1016 in E major.
The sixth sonata BWV 1019 has several manuscripts, with certain changes in the movements, but in all versions appear a solo movement for the harpsichord, with tacet in the violin. This is the only moment in the whole set of sonatas that this phenomenon happens, a kind of Bach's mocking humour.
Along this set of sonatas, Bach explores the different spirit of the different tonalities:
The first sonata BWV 1014 is in B minor, a tonality that Mattheson describes as bizarre, moody, and melancholic, is a tonality seldom used and here J.S. Bach shows an intimate way of beauty, creating an atmosphere of delicacy, harmony, and depth.
The second sonata BWV 1015, in A Major, shows, according to Mattheson opinion, a very touching character somewhat brilliant, especially in the first and second movements, plaintive and full of sad passions in the third movement, using the canon as a technical and expressive resource in a superb way, to end with a fourth movement full of aliveness and joy.
The third sonata BWV 1016, in E Major, with one of the most beautiful beginnings of any piece in musical history, with a free and improvised writing that at the same moment is a real challenge for the violin, is an example of what Mattheson says as a desperate sadness, showed in the third movement and with a penetrating second movement and a brilliant and virtuoso fourth movement.
The fourth sonata BWV 1017, in C minor is one of the most played within this set of sonatas. With a first movement that reminds us to the aria from St. Matthew Passion, “Erbarme dich, mein Gott”, shows according to Mattheson, liveliness, and sadness at the same time. With intense and demanding second and fourth movements, these fugues challenge both performers to a high-level technique of each instrument and player. The third movement explores the form of “echo” in a really mastered styled and always with the most extreme beauty.
The fifth sonata BWV 1018, in F minor, is written in an incredibly dark tonality but used in an amazing way for the genius composer, creating an atmosphere of blessed beauty and peaceful spirit, making it comfortable and natural for the violin. Both second and fourth movements are in a fugue style, but this time with a really flowing writing and a natural development. In the third movement, Bach uses the violin as an accompanying instrument, played with double stops and creating the most amazing harmonies. Meanwhile the harpsichord plays the main melody and principal role, guiding the violin towards the harpsichord field. According to Mattheson study about the tonalities spirit, this F minor is an example of mild and relaxed feelings, being heavy and deep at some moments and touching the helpless and melancholic character.
The sixth and last sonata of the whole set, the BWV 1019 in G Major, also one of the most played sonatas in concert halls, is a really opened and extrovert sonata. It differs from the other five sonatas by its formal structure, the number of movements and the harpsichord solo movement in the middle of the sonata. According to Mattheson, this sonata would show us a brilliant and a happy character in general, with persuasive, insinuating and serious characteristics at certain points. The opening of the sonata plays with the ambiguity between 3 and 4 beats and the musical message is explained in a fluent and easy way. The second movement, in the minor relative tonality of G-Major, E minor, creates an intimate and delicate dialogue between both instruments, full of refinement and detail. The third movement is a harpsichord solo, a quite rare way used in this kind of sonatas, but there Bach takes profit of all the technical and musical resources of such an instrument, reminding us of the power of the Concerto Italiano. The next movement, this time in B minor, is written in a canonical style, moving along several tonalities, and creating completely different atmospheres in the same movement. This sonata ends with an exuberant and playful movement, closing the whole set as well of the six sonatas. A brilliant way of the master to conclude all this big trip along all this micro-world that represents each sonata.
Adriana Alcaide
after Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel
and John Eliot Gardiner
Venue
Celje, Cathedral Church of St. Danijel
It is certainly the parish of St. Danijela was created as early as the 12th century, when the first large parishes of the then Ogle Patriarchate were created, as the first known pastor was already known in 1129, that is Rudbert. Certainly, at that time there was already a church here, which was called the parish church for many centuries.
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