C. P. E. Bach's two Sonatas for viola da gamba with continuo (Wq136 and 137) and the Sonata for gamba with concertante harpsichord (Wq88) are among the last if not the very last solo pieces outside France for an instrument which had been gradually supplanted by the cello. The two continuo works date from the mid 1740s while the other was written some ten years later. They are virtuoso pieces which explore the full range, technically and expressively of the bass viol.
Paolo Pandolfo draws a beautiful sound from his instrument, a fact which I have remarked upon before. In the new recording he proves himself to be a player with a secure technique and fine sensibility where light and shade and the shaping of phrases are concerned. These sonatas call for a virtuoso technique, at least in their faster movements while the slower ones—there are a preponderance of these—require the performer's rapport with Bach's Empfindsamer Stil. Pandolfo's resonant, melancholy tone effectively complements such movements and his feeling for Bach's expressive idiom is a constant pleasure. Phrases are eloquently spoken and the melodic line well sustained. Intonation is secure for the most part, only isolated notes and occasional trills failing to reach their target.
If I have been lukewarm about these sonatas in previous reviews then it can only have been that the performances did them scant justice. In the hands of an artist of this technical accomplishment and lively imagination the music springs to life with charm and conviction. In each of these sonatas Pandolfo is stylishly partnered by the harpsichordist Rinaldo Alessandrini. Readers unfamiliar with these at times almost startlingly expressive pieces will find much to satisfy them in this enlightened interpretation. The instruments themselves are copies of eighteenth-century models and the recording does them full justice; the accompanying note by Pandolfo himself makes interesting reading.'