# Solo Instrumental Music



## wilensky

Hi,
My favorite chamber music is one or two instrumental music. J. S. Bach is my favorite (for example the 6 Cello Suites and the Violin sonatas BWV 1014-1019).

But I want to expand my options of similar music and I`ll welcome any suggestions for other composers of the Baroque era.

Thanks.

Amnon


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## Quartetfore

The Bach Sonatas for Viola de Gamba are very enjoyable music. I think that most of the recordings use a Cello rather the Viola de Gamba.


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## sah

I love the Cello Suites and some pieces for lute by Bach.

Another Baroque pieces for solo: Telemann's Fantasias for flute.


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## jalex

Biber's Passacaglia for solo violin:






And don't forget Bach's Partita for solo flute:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Bach: Lute Suites, the three partitas and three sonatas for solo violin (otherwise known as the six solos), and yes the viol-da-gamba sonatas are also great. Look out for HIP recordings, they always turn out to be the best.


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## wilensky

Thanks all for the help.

I have just bought a new record "Six Sonatas For Cello" (Comoser: Jean-Baptiste Barrière).

Not Bach, But very nice.

Amnon


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## wilensky

You Are Right, They are beautiful.

Amnon


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## PetrB

Benjamin Britten, conservative modern composer, composed three suites for 'cello solo which are very fine, they were dedicated Mstislav Rostropovich, who recorded two of them.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

PetrB said:


> Benjamin Britten, conservative modern composer, composed three suites for 'cello solo which are very fine, they were dedicated Mstislav Rostropovich, who recorded two of them.


Britten: conservative, but the greatest composer of operas there ever was.


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## PetrB

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Britten: conservative, but the greatest composer of operas there ever was.


That was 1.) accurate 2.) said to not frighten them off 

I think it is only in politics where 'conservative' and 'liberal' are tossed around like stinking pejorative labels, LOL.


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## LordBlackudder




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## Head_case

The Musica Ad Rhenum group led by Jed Wentz are probably my favourite interpreters of his flute sonatas:






As famed as Rampal is, he plays with a metallic tone. The baroque period instruments sound incredible - none of the hinting earpiercing textures with the Boehm flute (a post-baroque invention). If you're looking to expand along the lines of Bach - the flute sonatas are very well covered, as well as being overmarketed with all those sexy silver Boehm flutes by players like Galway, Pahud. Their interpretations are great - it's just that Jed's is more original, in the most concrete meaning of the word


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

LordBlackudder said:


>


For once LordBlackudder is not posting game soundtracks.

But with my limited knowledge of game soundtracks maybe it is and I'm not realising it!


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## powerbooks

How about: Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas

http://www.amazon.com/Scarlatti-The-Keyboard-Sonatas-Box/dp/B0009MWAVQ


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## Sonata

powerbooks said:


> How about: Scarlatti: The Keyboard Sonatas
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Scarlatti-The-Keyboard-Sonatas-Box/dp/B0009MWAVQ
> 
> View attachment 6224


Great choice!


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## Krisena

There's of course the partitas and sonatas for violin solo by Bach, but you should definetely try out Eugéne Ysaÿe six sonatas for solo violin, even though you demand Baroque music. They are a fantasic compliment to Bach's work and they also contain some references to back to him.


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## elgar's ghost

Hindemith's four sonatas for solo viola (1919-1937) - maybe a little dry for a some of people but I'm a fan.


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## Head_case

I like a lot of the solo cello works by a string of composers from Kodaly, Szymanski, Dillon and Dutilleux etc.

Contemporary harpsichord music - like Augustyn's 'En Blanc et Noir', or Martinu's solo harpsichord works. 

The Bach violin sonatas are great - they transcribe very well for flute. I prefer the score to the music though.


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## Toddlertoddy

Debussy: Syrinx

http://www.classicalarchives.com/work/44385.html#tvf=tracks&tv=about
Asked by his frequent correspondent, the poet and dramatist Gabriel Mourey, to provide a score for his adaptation of the Psyche myth, Debussy expressed his reluctance thus: "What kind of genius is required to revive this ancient myth from which all the feathers of the wings of love have been plucked?" In the end, however, the composer sufficiently mustered his creative powers to produce a short incidental work for Mourey's play. Although Syrinx (1913) may seem relatively uncomplicated on the surface, especially since it calls only for a lone flute, its modest appearance belies its substance. In its simplicity of utterance and highly emotive language, Syrinx immediately recalls Debussy's Prelude à l'après midi d'un faune (1892-1894), and, likewise, evokes that work's sensual Symbolist resonances, inspired by the poetry of Mallarmé.

In both works, the composer's musical language is immensely cultured and, at the same time, in the forefront of contemporaneous musical modernism. This is most powerfully evident in the use of whole-tone scales and other devices that lend the music a strange ambiguity. In Syrinx, Debussy de-emphasizes, even dispenses with, conventional tonal centers; much of the work's potency instead derives from its delicate, fragmentary melodies and highly seductive timbral effects. Scholar Edward Lockspeiser points out that, significantly, given its implied association with the first of Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis (1900-1901), Syrinx was originally titled "Flûte de Pan." He further opines that "it is as exquisitely and lovingly designed as the flute solo for Mallarmé's mythological faun. It was the one project that was not allowed nebulously to float about in Debussy's mind during his long friendship with Mourey."


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## Bas

+ 1 on the Scarlatti Sonates. If you don't like the sound of the harpsichord, I recommend this recording on modern piano, by Alexandre Tharaud:


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