Product Reviews: 3 Sonatas for Flute after BWV1001 - BWV1006

These 3 sonatas consist of movements taken from various of the solo violin sonatas and aprtitas to form new, complete suites for solo flute. For any flautist who loves Bach's solo violin music and wishes there was something like them for flute other than the Partita in A minor, then this volume is a 'must have'.

They are edited and assembled by the formidable Peter Lukas Graf, who has chosen those movements that most easily translate to the flute (hence for instance, the famous Chaconne is omitted). Most stick pretty closely to the original therefore, with ornaments here and there to replace multiple stopping on the violin and suitably transposed upwards to lie within the flute's compass.

However, there is precious little in the way phrasing indications with little to no departure in that regard from the original violin phrasings and almost nothing beyone the originals in the way of dynamic suggestions, so it is up to the flautist to think about these and pencil them in - which could be an advantage to purists but not if you just want to get on and play the music without having to work out your own interpretations.

The original violin music is printed in small typeset directly beneath the flute transctiptions. Again, this could be of use to purists but unfortunately it takes up so much of the page that the result is frequent page turns interrupting the flow.

Still defintely worth getting though if for no other reason than saving yourself the trouble of transcribing them yourself!