BACH, Johann Christian (1735-1782)
Bach, J.C., Sonata a Piano forte e Viola da gamba obligato, C major, WarB B3b
The Maltzan Collection is a trove of manuscripts made up of thirty for the most part unknown works for viola da gamba in the holdings of the library of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland.Twenty-eight of the works are by Carl Friedrich Abel - including a number of autographs - and one each by Johann Christian Bach and Andreas Lidl. The manuscripts were copied between 1759 and 1789 in England, and purchased there by the then Prussian envoy in London, Count Joachim Carl Maltzan, who brought them back with him to Militsch, Silesia (today Milicz, Poland). In 1945 the manuscripts came into the possession of the library in Poznan. The collection was discovered in 2016 by Sonia Wronkowska, who is also the editor of the ten-volume edition of all the previously unknown works from this collection.
The sonata by Johann Christian Bach in the Maltzan Collection, for keyboard instrument and viola da gamba, fits in seamlessly with hisfour previously known sonatas of this kind. Like them, it is a hitherto unknown viola da gamba version of a keyboard sonata with violin accompaniment. We assume that Abel arranged the violin parts for viola da gamba in order to perform these pieces with Bach.
Editor: Sonia Wronkowska.
