Quasi-biblical texts for classical violinists, J S Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (1720) are adored and played by professional and amateur musicians around the world. Less frequently explored, though no less interesting, are Six Sonatas for Violin and Keyboard composed shortly after their more famous cousins (1720-1723), towards the end of Bach’s period as Kapellmeister at Köthen, and immediately before his appointment to the Thomaskirche in Leipzig.

Written in Trio Sonata form, with keyboard providing not only basso continuo but also a duetting melodic line, these sonatas treat violin and keyboard as equals, and thus foreshadow the development of duo sonatas by Mozart and Beethoven, as well compositions of the romantic and modern periods by César Franck, Max Reger, and Dmitri Shostakovich.

In this programme, the dedicatee of Franck's Violin Sonata is featured in one of his own Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, and Bach reigns supreme in the first half, including a new combined version of his E major Partita taken from arrangements by Kreisler, Schumann, and Rachmaninoff.