Teodoro Baù: Bach

The Strad Issue: January 2026

Description: Clarity is to the fore, though sometimes balance is off-kilter

Musicians: Teodoro Baù (viola da gamba) Andreas Buccarella (harpsichord)

Works: Bach: Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord: G major BWV1027, D major BWV1028, G minor BWV1029, G minor BWV1030a

Catalogue number: ARCANA A586

Teodoro Baù is an intelligent, technically accomplished gambist, who has a well-matched partner in harpsichordist Andrea Buccarella. Both artists keenly sense the architecture of each phrase, unfolding harmonic progressions with clarity of shape and momentum, and their conversational interplay is animated, engaging and musically unanimous.

As with their debut recording of Corelli’s Violin Sonatas op.5, their collaboration extends to transcription; their ‘edition’ of BWV1030 complements their programme well, not least because the three other sonatas are themselves largely transcriptions of other works.

Reservations centre principally on issues of tempo and balance. Although most of their speeds are essentially par for the course, the Allegro fugues of BWV1027 are played without apparent reference to Bach’s additional qualifications – ‘ma non tanto’ and ‘moderato’ respectively. BWV1030a’s first movement also seems too fast for its ‘[Andante]’ indication and the demisemiquavers of BWV1029’s Vivace lose clarity at this overzealous speed.

Conversely, the duo lingers somewhat over BWV1029’s second movement and BWV1030a’s Siciliano. With the gamba often in its middle range, framed by the two harpsichord parts in bass and treble registers, satisfactory balance is sometimes not realised, notably in the second movement of BWV1028 – where the strident harpsichord sound obscures much of the contrapuntal detail – the same sonata’s expressive Andante and in BWV1030a’s opening movement.

ROBIN STOWELL