Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Flute sonata in B minor, BWV 1030
Flute sonata in E major, BWV 1035 
Flute sonata in A major, BWV 1032
Flute sonata in E minor, BWV 1034
Aysha Wills (traverso flute) 
Artem Belogurov (harpsichord, clavichord) 
Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde (cello)
rec. 2022, De Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam
TRPTK TTK0092 SACD [56]

For her debut album on the TRPTK label, Aysha Wills has recorded the four J.S. Bach flute sonatas. Some of Bach’s chamber compositions for flute cannot be genuinely attributed to the great master but here Wills has chosen the four sonatas with firmer ascriptions.

A significant change that evolved in the group of woodwind instruments in the baroque period was the gradual replacement of the recorder by the traverso (transverse) flute. Evidently Bach first became familiar with the traverso whilst serving at Cöthen (1717-23), when he wrote a quantity of chamber works.

Wills’ association with the music of J.S. Bach began at an early age. She remembers as a child hearing Glenn Gould’s recording of the Goldberg Variations and clearly possesses an affinity to the Bach Sonatas, which she describes as ‘the cornerstone of my musical career.’ She is a founding member of Postscript, an early music group, that also records on the TRPTK label and is dedicated as a player to historically informed performance practice with period instruments. On this album, she has chosen to play a modern reproduction of an original (and significantly modified) baroque traverso flute. 

Accompanying Wills on the album are two colleagues from Postscript. Artem Belogurov favours historical keyboards and in three of the sonatas plays a modern copy of a two manual baroque harpsichord, while for the E major sonata he reverts to an original clavichord. Joining both Wills and Belogurov in the E minor sonata is period-instrument exponent Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde using an original baroque cello by Pieter Rombouts.

The album opens with the B minor sonata, BWV 1030 which Bach authority Nicholas Kenyon describes as ‘a masterpiece of the highest order’. This celebrated sonata was possibly originally written in another key and for a different instrument. Wills’ and Belogurov’s playing creates an engaging atmosphere of an aria-like quality and the zesty ebullience given to final movement presto is especially pleasing. 

Bach wrote his E major sonata, BWV 1035 around the time of his 1741 trip to the Potsdam court of the flute-playing Frederick the Great of Prussia where Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was a musician. Wills is joined here by Belogurov, who plays an attractive clavichord which sounds far less bright than the usually heard harpsichord. Especially gratifying is the slow third movement siciliano, an early baroque dance form, which is sweet, enchanting and elegantly played. 

Next the A major sonata, BWV 1032 a work with a chequered history. Possibly a re-write of an earlier trio sonata with recorder, its score was found in Breslau and given to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. Unfortunately, a section of the opening movement is missing. For safety during WW2 the score was moved to the Silesia region and then to Kraków and was not returned to Berlin until 1977. For this recording Wills has used the reconstruction of the missing section by Gerrit de Marez Oyens. Here, her traverso is again accompanied by Belogurov’s harpsichord and both play delightfully, notably in the central movement largo e dolce.

Finally comes the E minor sonata, BWV 1034 my favourite of the set. This is a challenging score possibly written for virtuoso Gabriel Buffardin, principal flautist of the Dresden Hofkapelle. Wills is once more joined by Belogurov on harpsichord and the cello part played by Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde adds richness. It opens with an adagio ma non tanto movement of a dreamlike quality tinged with melancholy. Standing out, too, is the fourth movement finale, a vibrant dance-like allegro. 

Aysha Wills and her partners display pleasing form in these four sonatas and their fondness for these works is persuasive but an emphasis on technical precision comes here at the expense of some of the additional character that I feel best suits these sonatas. I have no preference for them being played on modern or period instruments, modern copies of period instruments or even a combination of those; in my view, foremost is whatever sounds best. 

There is a considerable number of recordings of these J.S. Bach flute sonatas available in what is a highly competitive market. My first-choice album is played by Emmanuel Pahud using a modern flute with Trevor Pinnock on harpsicord. Recorded in 2008 at Teldex Studio, Berlin the album is released on EMI Classics (reissued on Warner Classics) c/w. BWV 1013, 1020, 1030-1035, 1039. Of the period instrument performances, the album I most admire features François Lazarevitch on traverso flute and harpsichordist Jean Rondeau. Recorded in 2013 at La Chapelle de L’Église Notre Dame de Bon Secours, Paris, it is on the Alpha label, c/w. BWV 1013, 1030, 1032, 1034-1035.

Although none is included on this album, other Bach recordings sometimes contain those flute sonatas with questionable attributions, namely those in G minor; BWV 1020; E flat major, 1031 and C major, BWV 1033. Bach wrote works for solo instruments both with and without keyboard accompaniment, including a partita for unaccompanied flute in A minor, BWV 1013 which Wills knows well and for which she has written a harpsichord accompaniment, so its omission here is rather surprising. 

Auditioned on my standard unit, this hybrid SACD release, recorded at Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam, by Brendon Heinst, senior recording and mastering engineer, enjoys first class sound, having noticeably impressive clarity and balanced with the traverso flute placed slightly forward.

Michael Cookson

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Instruments
Aysha Wills – The ‘Eigentopf’ a modern conception traverso in boxwood by Fridtjof Aurin (Düsseldorf, 2016) based on an original (and significantly modified) traverso by Leipzig maker Johann Heinrich Eichentopf (1678-1769).
Artem Belogurov – Modern copy of a two manual harpsichord by Bruce Kennedy (Castelmuzio, Tuscany, 1989) after Michael Mietke (Berlin, c. 1704-08). 
Original clavichord by Johann Paul Kraemer & Sons (Göttingen, 1803). 
Octavie Dostaler-Lalonde – Cello by Pieter Rombouts (Amsterdam, c. 1690).