Johann Sebastian Bach
Sonatas

About Johann Sebastian Bach's Sonatas

The Sonata form as it is known today was yet to be developed during the Baroque period; instead, the label was typically used for instrumental works of varying forms, often with multiple movements. Of Bach’s over 1100 surviving compositions and arrangements, only around 4% are labeled “sonatas”.

Bach’s keyboard sonatas are all early works, possibly composed during or before 1705 when Bach was just 20 years old. They were first published in the 1860’s over a hundred years after his death.

All of the sonatas except BWV 963 are known to be keyboard arrangements of ensemble works. BWV 964 is an arrangement of the Sonata for violin solo No. 2 in A minor, BWV 1003 (possibly written by Johann Gottfried Müthel). BWV 965-966 are based on pieces from Johann Adam Reincken’s Hortus musicus (1687). The original composer of the arrangement BWV 967 is unknown.