This sonata, scored for two
transverse flutes and
continuo, is one of the few trio sonatas that can genuinely be attributed to Bach. Although traditionally thought to have been composed during Bach's period in
Weimar or
Cöthen, Bach scholars have revised that dating based on an analysis of the extant manuscripts and on stylistic considerations. According to
Wolff (1994), the trio sonata was composed between 1736 and 1741 in
Leipzig, where, since 1729, Bach had been director of the
Collegium Musicum, a
chamber music society performing weekly at the
Café Zimmermann. The version for
viola da gamba and
harpsichord, BWV 1027, as well as the other two
sonatas for this ensemble, are dated by
Laurence Dreyfus,
Christoph Wolff and others to the same period.[1][2]
Apart from the sonata for viola da gamba and the trio sonata for two flutes and continuo, there is a third version of the sonata for organ—the trio sonata in G major in three movements (BWV 1027a and BWV 1039a). The first two movements are organ transcriptions of the first two movements of BWV 1039; while its last movement is a transcription of the fourth movement of BWV 1027. According to the Bach scholar Russell Stinson, the transcription for organ was not made by Bach, but probably by
Johann Peter Kellner.[4][5][6][7] Pieter Dirksen has surmised that although the Gamba sonata BWV 1027 corresponds to one of Bach's own autograph manuscript from 1740, the other sources, one of them with Bach's son
Johann Gottfried Bernhard as scribe, probably date from 1735 or later. Stinson also thinks it possible that the organ arrangement could originate from a lost trio sonata in G major for two violins and basso continuo.[8][9][10][5]
Cyr, Mary (1989), "Review: Three Sonatas for Viola da Gamba and Harpsichord (BWV1027-1029) by J. S. Bach, Hans Eppstein, Lucy Robinson, Laurence Dreyfus and Jean-Louis Charbonnier", Early Music, 17: 106, 108, 110, 113,
doi:
10.1093/earlyj/XVII.1.106,
JSTOR3127270
Stinson, Russell (1989), "Three organ-trio transcriptions from the Bach-circle: Keys to a lost Bach chamber work", in Franklin, Don O. (ed.), Bach Studies,
Cambridge University Press, pp. 125–159
Stinson, Russell, ed. (1992), "Keyboard Transcriptions from the Bach Circle", Recent Researches in the Music of the Baroque Era, 69: vii–ix