The Muses’ Delight presents a program of intimate and challenging works that showcase a true musical dialogue between the flute and harpsichord. Towards the end of the Baroque period, many composers started to write obbligato sonatas. Obbligato sonatas are an exploration of the various styles of Baroque music and the emotional resonances of genres from joyful to melancholic. Rather than accompanying the instrumentalist, the harpsichordist’s right hand plays a line on an equal footing with the soloist. The Baroque tradition of rhetoric resulted in music that expressed intense feelings and passions to move an audience. The composer would draw inspiration from speech-like patterns in an attempt to ‘make music talk’. This concept is perfectly encapsulated in these sonatas where the two voices are intertwined.

Join The Muses’ Delight as they present some of these fascinating works, with a focus on JS Bach, who wrote some of the best-known obbligato sonatas.

Artists:

Meredith Beardmore, flute
Peter Hagen, harpsichord

Program:

Johann Adolphe Scheibe, Sonata No.2 in B minor

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Sonata in D
Selections from Petites Pièces pour le Clavecin, Wq. 116-117

Johann Sebastian Bach, Flute Sonata in A