page_title: Organ Sonatas (Bach)
section_title: Origins of organ trio
hierarchical_section_title: Organ Sonatas (Bach) / Origins and purpose / Origins of organ trio
caption_attribution_description: Harpsichord part, second half of second movement of 4th concerto in E minor for transverse flute and harpsichord, TWV 42:e3, from Six Concerts et Six Suites by Georg Philipp Telemann, engraved by Telemann in Hamburg. Originally composed 1715–1720.
context_page_description: The organ sonatas, BWV 525–530 by Johann Sebastian Bach are a collection of six sonatas in trio sonata form. Each of the sonatas has three movements, with three independent parts in the two manuals and obbligato pedal. The collection was put together in Leipzig in the late 1720s and contained reworkings of prior compositions by Bach from earlier cantatas, organ works and chamber music as well as some newly composed movements. The sixth sonata, BWV 530, is the only one for which all three movements were specially composed for the collection. When played on an organ, the second manual part is often played an octave lower on the keyboard with appropriate registration. Commentators have suggested that the collection might partly have been intended for private study to perfect organ technique, some pointing out that its compass allows it to be played on a pedal clavichord. The collection of sonatas is generally regarded as one of Bach's masterpieces for organ. The sonatas are also considered to be amongst his most difficult compositions for the instrument.
context_section_description: The Sonatas make a world of their own, as distinctive and accomplished as the first movements of Leipzig cantatas or the preludes and fugues of Well Tempered Clavier I. The two hands are not merely imitative but so planned as to give a curious satisfaction to the player, with phrases answering each other and syncopations dancing from hand to hand, palpable in a way not quite known even to two violinists. Melodies are bright or subdued, long or short, jolly or plaintive, instantly recognizable for what they are, and so made (as the ear soon senses) to be invertible. Probably the technical demands on the player also contribute to their unique aura.
  — Williams (2003, p. 9)
  Although Bach created a unique compositional genre in this collection of sonatas, the roots of the organ trio can be traced back to the works of earlier composers and some of Bach's own earlier compositions for organ.
  Bach had in his possession many organ works by seventeenth century French organists such as Boyvin, Clérambault, Grigny, Lebègue and Raison who wrote trios, trios en dialogue and trios à trois claviers for two manuals and pedal, with distinctive registrations for each manual keyboard. Bach's sonatas however, with their binary or ritornello form, owe very little to these French organ trios. 
  Earlier models for Bach's type of organ trio occurred in the first versions of the trios in the Great Eighteen Chorale Preludes, particularly  Allein Gott in der Höh' sei Ehr, BWV 664a, and Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend, BWV 655a. Both these chorale preludes were written towards the end of Bach's years in Weimar.   Both BWV 664a and BWV 655a follow the pattern of the Italian trio sonata for two violins involving invertible counterpoint. In a more rudimentary form, trios of this kind already appeared in German organ music in a few of the freely composed chorale preludes of Buxtehude, van Noordt, Armsdorff and Georg Böhm, Bach's teacher from Lüneburg. In the two chorale preludes of Bach, the organ trio became fully developed into a concerto-like fast movement: they are written in ritornello form, with the theme in the bass as well as the upper parts, which are written imitatively with virtuosic episodes. The first version of the slow movement of BWV 528 also dates from roughly the same period: instead of the larger scale structure of the two chorale preludes, the musical material is broken up into imitative two bar phrases, often of bewitching beauty. Although no longer having any liturgical references (in particular no cantus firmus), the sonatas BWV 525–530 preserve the concerto-like quality of the two Weimar chorale preludes;  like them the manual and pedal parts are written within an idiom particular to the organ rather than that of solo instruments like the violin or flute. On the other hand, there is very little similarity between the compositional style of the organ sonatas and that of Bach's organ transcriptions of instrumental concertos by Vivaldi and other composers.
  With their chamber music quality, the organ sonatas have clear affinities with Bach's sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and solo instrument—violin, viola da gamba and flute, also composed or compiled in Leipzig. They are all written in trio sonata form with binary and ritornello movements. Moreover, the collection of six sonatas for obbligato harpsichord and violin, BWV 1014–1019 seems to have involved a similar survey, recording all possible ways of writing for the instrumental combination. There are, however, significant differences:
  the organ sonatas are conceived more in concerto form with three movements, whereas the instrumental sonatas  have four or more movements like a sonata da chiesa;
  the instrumental sonatas do not preserve a strict equality between the upper part—there is often a distinction between material for the melody instrument and the keyboard part, which can play a purely continuo-like role;
  in the instrumental sonatas, either part can be divided, with the addition of an extra voice or double stopping;
  while movements from the instrumental sonatas can be diff
caption: Harpsichord part of second half of second movement of Telemann's Concert IV engraved in Hamburg in 1734 by Telemann himself
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