The six Trio Sonatas for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) “are written in such galant style that they still sound very good, and never grow old, but on the contrary will outlive all revolutions of fashion in music.” Attributed to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, this quote from A Comparison in 1788 of his father’s and Handel’s music continues to resonate with us today. Arrangements of these splendid works abound, and provide an opportunity to extract these jewels for the purpose of performing more of Bach’s music with chamber ensemble forces. The genre of the trio sonata was one of the most popular in the baroque era, yet Bach and even
Handel yielded very few works of this type during their careers. Although the terminology Sonata a tre, Sonate en trio or Sonata of 3 Parts would suggest a total of three voices, the title in fact refers to the number of parts in the composition.