Chatham Baroque

Our program focuses on music from German-speaking lands, highlighting composers active in the 17th and 18th centuries. Works by Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Heinrich Erlebach treat the violin and viola da gamba as equal solo voices, while pieces by Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Heinrich Ignaz Biber, Johann Sebastian Bach, and George Frideric Handel center on the remarkable baroque repertoire for solo violin and continuo. Baroque’s unique sound.

Though these composers shared the German language, they lived and worked in cities and courts that were culturally and geographically diverse—including the seventeenth-century courts of Vienna and Salzburg, North German towns such as Leipzig, and cosmopolitan cities such as London.

A pivotal figure in seventeenth-century Vienna, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer played a key role in introducing Italian styles to the Habsburg court, where he worked alongside Italian musicians. He was a likely mentor to Heinrich Biber and the first Austrian composer to be appointed Kapellmeister at the imperial court. Schmelzer’s life was tragically cut short by the plague.

Schmelzer’s Sonatae unarum fidium (1664), a groundbreaking collection of solo violin works, is the first known publication of sonatas for violin and continuo by a German-speaking composer. The Sonata quarta is a richly inventive work built on a descending four-note ground bass. Over the course of numerous variations, Schmelzer weaves in changing textures, meters, and dance rhythms—including a sarabandaand gigue — moving seamlessly from one to the next. The sonata culminates in a rhapsodic passage marked by a cascade of arpeggios.

Heinrich Ignaz Biber, often regarded as one of the greatest violin composers of the Baroque, was famed for his virtuosic and expressive violin works. Charles Burney, a prominent 18th-century music historian, wrote “Of all the violin players of the last century Biber seems to have been the best, and his solos are the most difficult and most fanciful of any music I have seen of the same period.”

The Sonata in F Major from Sonatae Violino Solo (1681) showcases Biber’s masterful use of violin technique, highlighting the instrument’s virtuosity and emotional depth. Unlike many of Biber’s works, which employ alternate scordatura tunings, this sonata is written for standard violin tuning, providing an opportunity to explore his expressive range within more familiar bounds. The piece exemplifies the stylus fantasticus with its free, rhapsodic sections, brilliant passaggi, and audacious double stops, all while demonstrating the violin’s full range of technical and expressive capabilities. This sonata is unique as well for its dramatically abrupt ending.

Dietrich Buxtehude is perhaps best known as one of J.S. Bach’s most important predecessors in Northern Germany. Like Bach, Buxtehude’s compositional output was focused on church music. Among his relatively few published works, however, are two collections of seven sonatas for violin, viola da gamba, and continuo (1694 and 1696), which showcase his flair for expressive instrumental writing. The Sonata in A Minor, Op. 1 No. 3 is a vivid example of the early Baroque stylus fantasticus —a free, improvisatory style marked by dramatic contrasts and rhetorical gestures. Rather than adhering to a fixed movement structure, the sonata unfolds in a series of contrasting sections, blending lyrical melodies, lively counterpoint, and virtuosic flourishes. The violin and viola da gamba engage in an animated musical dialogue, alternately imitating, challenging, and supporting each other.

German Baroque composer Johann Heinrich Erlebach wrote in a cosmopolitan musical language that blends the Italian sonata style with French dance rhythms. Much of his music was tragically lost in a fire in 1735, making his surviving works rare treasures. The Sonata No. 1 in D Major exemplifies Erlebach’s balance of national styles. As in the Buxtehude sonata, there is an equal partnership between the violin and viola da gamba, which engage in a subtle and expressive dialogue throughout. The gamba takes on an active, idiomatic and soloistic voice. With its fusion of national styles, refined textures, and understated virtuosity, this sonata offers a glimpse chamber music by lesser-known German composers.

Although Johann Sebastian Bach’s chamber music output for violin and continuo is relatively small, his Sonata in G Major for violin and basso continuo (BWV 1021) is a rare gem. Though completed in 1732, the sonata was only rediscovered in 1929. The sonata’s autograph is a family collaboration, with Bach’s second wife, Anna Magdalena, copying the music, while Bach himself wrote the titles and figured bass. The piece follows a typical sonata da chiesa structure of alternating slow and fast movements. The violin and basso continuo are in constant dialogue with the violin’s expressive melody. The use of the theorbo and viola da gamba as continuo instruments lends Chatham Baroque’s unique sonority to the work.

Though born in the same year as Bach, George Frideric Handel is best known for his operas and oratorios, and his international career that took him to Italy and London. His Sonata in G Minor, Op. 1 No. 6 shows his ability to blend Italian and French styles with his own distinctive voice. The Op. 1 Sonatas were published in London around 1730, though much of the music likely dates from earlier decades.

Written in the sonata da chiesa format, the piece alternates slow and fast movements, with each section offering an opportunity for the violin to shine in its expressive, lyrical capacity. The G Minor key gives a melancholy quality to the work, highlighting Handel’s gift for dramatic pacing and expressive writing that he developed as an opera composer.

Carl Friedrich Abel, born into a family of musicians, is perhaps best known for his role in establishing the viola da gamba as a prominent instrument in 18th-century chamber music. After studying with members of the Bach family, Abel became a key figure in the Dresden Court orchestra before moving to London, where he partnered with Johann Christian Bach in organizing a successful concert series.

The Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major represents a late work by Abel, written in a more modern style than much of his earlier work. The sonata features fresh harmonic progressions and advanced techniques, offering a rich exploration of the viola da gamba’s expressive capabilities. Composed near the end of Abel’s life, this work shows his mastery of the instrument and his ability to blend classical elegance with innovative phrasing.

—Scott Pauley, Patricia Halverson, Andrew Fouts

PROGRAM:
Sonata in G Major (BWV 1021), Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Adagio—Vivace—Largo—Presto

Trio Sonata in A Minor Op. 1 No. 3 (BuxWV 254), Dietrich Buxtehude (c. 1637-1707)
Adagio—Allegro—Lento—Vivace—Largo—Presto

Sonata No. 7 in Bb Major, Carl Friedrich Abel (1723-1787)
Allegro—Adagio—Menuet

Sonata Quarta in D Major, Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c. 1620-1680)

INTERMISSION

Sonata I in D Major, Philipp Heinrich Erlebach (1657 – 1714)
Adagio—Allegro—Affettuoso
Allemande—Courante—Sarabande & Variatio—Gigue

Sonata III in F Major, Heinrich Ignaz Biber (1644-1704)

Trio Sonata in G Minor Op. 1 No. 6, George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)
Larghetto—Allegro—Adagio—Allegro

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Watch this concert live.