Bach’s career as a composer can be easily divided into the years of employment as a professional musician.  From 1708, Bach was organist and court musician to Duke Wilhelm Ernst of Weimar.  Many of Bach’s finest organ works date from this period.  Also some early church cantatas.  In 1717 Bach was offered the post of Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen.  A strict Calvinist, the Prince required no music for his chapel but maintained a lively collegium musicum – a musical ensemble, giving Bach the opportunity to compose instrumental works.  It is here that he composed the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, various instrumental sonatas and keyboard suites and the six Brandenburg Concertos.  Prince Leopold was an able played on the violin, bass viol and harpsichord.  It was for him that Bach almost certainly composed his 3 Gamba Sonatas. 

As a child, Benjamin Britten first started, at the age of 5, piano lessons.  At 10 he began to learn the viola.  As a student at the Royal College of Music, he continued instrumental studies alongside lessons in composition.  Britten became one of the greatest voices in British music with works like Peter Grimes and the War Requiem. He delighted in writing music for friends and professional colleagues.  In 1950, while writing the opera Billy Budd, he composed Lachrymae, his only mature work for the Viola.  It was written for the Scottish viola player, William Primrose, who premiered the piece at the 1950 Aldeburgh Festival with the composer at the piano.  It is a series of variations on the first phrase of Dowland’s song ‘If my complaints could passions move’.   In the last year of his life, Britten orchestrated the piano part for strings, for the violist Cecil Aronowitz.

The 2 Viola Sonatas Op.120 were originally written for Clarinet.  There is some controversy concerning the composer’s attitude to the Viola playing this music.  In October 1894 Brahms wrote to his friend, the violinist Joachim, inviting him to come to Frankfurt.  “Should you be coming to Frankfurt… please let me know. I would come too, and either invite Mühlfeld or bring a viola part for two clarinet sonatas which I should very much like Frau Schumann to hear.”  It is uncertain that the composer ever heard either of the Op.120 sonatas in a Viola version, but they have entered the viola repertoire with great success. 

Programme Notes Copywrite Alistair Jones, 2025