JS Bach (??), BWV 1023

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This is the very neat handwriting of Johann Gottfried Grundig - the chief copyist of the Dresden court under Pisendel (thank you #IMSLP!) - who recorded this work attributed to Bach but likely played by both Bach and Pisendel together. The set of Sonatas, which includes BWV 1024 and BWV 1025, take wild harmonic and innovative technical turns. 

I wonder about the sense of ‘ownership’ and copyright, which certainly didn’t exist in the baroque time - composers were as much improvisers, collaborators, and innovators as they were ‘recorders’ of their own music - and in a day without recording, it was likely the job of a scribe, like Grundig, to copy or flesh out the sketches of their bosses. 

These are not ‘carved in concrete,’ sacrosanct works closed off to further discovery - but rather, fluid, alive, and calling for our own creative engagement; a diving board. 

The notes on the page are just the beginning, symbols of real expression. 
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With Ian Pritchard on a gorgeous Ahrend-Brunzema organ at the stunning Burns House in Santa Monica, at the generous invitation of Place Notes. I’m playing my Tyrol Baroque fiddle tuned to A=445.