Violin Sonata In A Minor Analysis

Johann Sebastian Bach Violin Sonata in A minor BWV 1003 (1720)

Greatest German composer of all time, Johann Sebastian was born in a musical family in Eisenach. He received his musical training from his father Johann Ambrosius and relatives. Besides being a highly respected organist, Bach’s compositions were also greatly recognized and became the musical model for other famed composers after his time such as Mozart, Beethoven and Mendelssohn.

The Sonata in A minor is one of the works in Bach’s six unaccompanied violin sonatas and partitas. His sonata has 4 movements and all organized in slow-fast-slow-fast order. The whole set was completed in 1720 while Bach serves under Prince Leopold as the director of

Beethoven showed his musical talents at his young age. In 1792 he moved to Vienna and spent rest of his live there. He studied with Haydn and soon he gained his reputation as a virtuoso pianist that often showing his ability of improvisation during performance.

Beethoven’s career as a composer can be categorized into three periods: (1) the peak of Classical period where most of his works shown influences of his teacher Joseph Haydn, as well as influences from other great musicians of all time such as Mozart. (2) 2nd period where Beethoven began to lose his hearing, his music changed as he expanded the traditional style forms and let it sounded emotionally more powerful and full of boldness. (3) He strived to search for new sounding and he restudied Bach’s work in hoping to absorb the polyphonic color infused in his later works.

The Violin Sonata No. 6 was published in 1803 and dedicated to Czar Alexander I of Russia. The work displayed Beethoven’s middle period compositional style that shows great advance in terms of musical and writing style for the violin. Overall, the 2nd movement was well-proportioned. Occasionally, the piano part is more complex than the violin part however the principal theme is shared between the Violin and Piano. Max Bruch Violin Concerto in G minor

His career as a composer can be divided into three main sections: (1) Early years where he discovered and included elements of English folk songs and carols into his music, (2) The outbreak of World War 1, he changed his compositional style and completed his symphony no.3 (Pastoral) where he got his inspirations serving as lieutenant during the war. (3) In his late years, he composed film music which displayed his renewed interest in harmonies and instrumentation.

The Lark Ascending was written in 1914. The title came from the poem by George Meredith. The work was originally written for violin and piano but in 1919 after World War 1 he revised and orchestrated the work. He changed and rewrote the soloist’s part by adding cadenzas without bar lines to imitate the bird song.

The violin-piano version was premiered in the year 1920 at Shirehampton, Gloucestershire featuring Marie Hall as the violinist. Within the same year, Vaughan Williams worked with Marie Hall to revised the orchestration and dedicated the work to her. In 1921, the final orchestral version was performed by Marie Hall together with the British Symphony