Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
Barefoot is delighted to be able to present Bay Area icon Elizabeth Blumenstock and harpsichord guru Corey Jamason, who will play several of the great sonatas by J. S. Bach for violin and harpsichord, as well as some solo music by Bach for violin and for harpsichord. This will be locavore chamber music at its finest, in the lovely acoustic of St. Mary Magdalen Parish Hall.
Bach was both a virtuoso harpsichordist, and a violin player of some skill, although the demands of the violin parts of these sonatas suggest that the pieces were written with another, perhaps more accomplished player in mind, as is the case with the partitas for solo violin. The sonatas were likely written in the 1720s, and Bach constantly revised them, as we can see from surviving primary sources. As with so many of Bach’s instrumental sonatas, they are trios: the right hand of the harpsichord and the violin form the two treble instruments involved in a dialogue, while the bass, in a supportive role, is played by the left hand of the keyboard.
These works are integral to the baroque instrumental repertoire, fabulous examples of Bach’s endless creativity and playfulness. They cannot be played, or heard, too often.