Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

  Apart from surviving manuscript sources, among which Bach’s autograph dated 1720 is the most precious, our first record of the pieces comes from the middle of the eighteenth century. C.P.E. Bach mentions them in his obituary of his father, published in the last volume of Lorenz Christoph Mizler’s Musikalische Bibliothek in 1754. He stresses that the works demonstrate how well Johann Sebastian understood the possibilities of string instruments and states that a “great violinist” once told him “that he had seen nothing more perfect for learning to be a good violinist, and could suggest nothing better to anyone eager to learn, than the said violin solos without bass”.

Whether because of CPE Bach’s authority or because the pieces are so different from Italian baroque violin music, the notion of regarding Bach's Solos as indispensable for perfecting the violinist’s polyphonic technique — rather than as supreme compositions in their own right  remained strong for a long time. This is evidenced in the subtitle of Ferdinand David’s 1842-3 edition which reads: “For use at the Leipzig Conservatoire …)

   Published in  Essays in Honor of László Somfai: Studies in the Sources and the Interpretation of Music Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2005: 87-108

 Towards a Performance History of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin: Preliminary Investigations