Two rising stars in today’s firmament of Baroque music performance, Leila Schayegh and Jörg Halubek, join forces to record one of the major challenges in their joint repertory: the six Bach Violin Sonatas, BWV 1014-1019.

The collection’s title, Sei Suonate à Cembalo certato è Violino Solo, reflects the close partnership demanded of the violin and harpsichord players,with Bach moving away from the idea of continuo support for a solo instrument and constantly making new technical demands on the musicians and thereby approaching the concept of the triosonata.Completed by around 1725, most of these richly characterful works combine the slow-fast-slow-fast sequence of movements found in Italian works and a cantabile tone with elements of German contrapuntal style.

The artistic partnership of Schayegh and Halubek, now in its tenth year, has seen them record chamber music by Jean-Marie Leclair, CPE Bach and Giovanni Mossi but the Bach Violin Sonatas represents their first joint recording for Glossa (Schayegh took part in the recent much-acclaimed recording of CaldaraTrio Sonatas, Op 1 with Amandine Beyer for the label, as well as regularly having featured on many of La Risonanza’s Glossa releases). As Schayegh and Habulek mention in their shared booklet essay guiding the listener through the Violin Sonatas (and through the 12 represented keys which are also reflected in the set’s graphic design), they have added two movements from the earlier version of the final Sonata, BWV 1019a as a kind of cheerful and delightful encore.