Lester Joel. Bach's Works for Solo Violin: Style, Structure, Performance

Oxford University Press, USA, 1999. — 197 p.: musical examples.J. S. Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin have been central to the violin repertoire since the mid-eighteenth century. This engaging volume is the first comprehensive exploration of the place of these works within Bach's music: it focuses on their structural and stylistic features as they have been perceived since their creation. Joel Lester, a highly regarded scholar, teacher, violinist, and administrator, combines an analytical study, a full historical guide, and an insightful introduction to Bach's style. Individual movements are related to comparable movements by Bach in other media and are differentiated from superficially similar works from later eras.Lester employs descriptions of historical and contemporary recordings, as well as accounts of nineteenth-century performances and commentaries on historical editions, to explore these works as they evolved through the centuries. Wherever possible, he uses analytic tools culled from eighteenth-century ideas, key notions originally developed for the specific purpose of describing the repertoire under consideration. Beginning with an overview of the solo violin music's place within Bach's oeuvre, this study takes the Sonata No. 1 in G minor as the paradigm of Bach's compositional strategy, examining each movement in detail before enlarging the discussion to cover parallel and contrasting features of the A-minor and C-minor sonatas. Next, a chapter is devoted to the three partitas and their roots in various dance-music traditions. The book concludes with a summary of form, style, and rhetoric in Bach's music, in which Lester muses on these masterpieces with an overall command of the music, criticism, and history of the 1700s that is quite rare among scholars.A novel and unprecedented investigation of a particular portion of Bach's accomplishment and a particular aspect of his universal appeal, Bach's Works for Solo Violin will help violinists, students, scholars, and other listeners develop a deeper personal involvement with these wonderful pieces.The History of Bach's Solo-Violin Works
The Historical Setting
Bach’s Score
The Transmission of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas
The G-minor Adagio
The Adagio as a Prelude to the Fuga
One Type of Bach Prelude
The G-minor Adagio as a Prelude
The Adagio's Rhetorical Shape
Performance Considerations
Notes on the Autograph Score
Performing the Rhythmic Notations
The Other Prelude Movements in the Solo-Violin Works
The G-minor Fuga
The Sections of the G-minor Fuga
Other Aspects of Heightening Activity in the Fuga
Structure and Performance: The Fugal Exposition
The Eighteenth-Century Arrangements
The A-minor and C-major Fugas
The Siciliana of the G-minor Sonata
Bach’s Parallel-Section Movements
The Structure of the Siciliana
A Questionable Note and Some Thoughts on Ornamentation
The Third Movements of the Other Solo-Violin Sonatas
The G-minor Presto
The Presto and Perpetual Motions
Baroque versus Later Metrics
Binary Form and (versus?) Increasing Levels of Activity
Performance Issues in the G-minor Presto
The Finales to the A-minor and C-major Sonatas
The Partitas
Series of Dance Movements
The Dance Types
The Chaconne
Closing Thoughts
Notes
Works Cited