During the pandemic, when the performing life of musicians was essentially paralysed, Raphael Wallfisch commissioned a new 5-string ‘violoncello piccolo’ so he could use the time to get to know this unusual instrument, the archaic cousin of the modern cello. This allowed him to gain new insights, from the ‘inside’, of J.S. Bach’s famous sixth solo cello suite, written ‘a cinq cordes’, as Anna Magdalena Bach described it. The additional ‘E’ string lies a fifth above the A string, usually the highest on the cello.

In this unique concert, Raphael is joined by famous Bach specialist John Butt at the harpsichord for two of Bach’s beautiful viola da gamba sonatas, together with the sixth solo suite. This remarkable music is placed in the context of other important influences; a gamba sonata by Carl Abel (it was Carl’s father who was the celebrated gamba performer at the court at Köthen), and a contemporary Italian cello sonata by Vivaldi. The whole concert is ‘preludised’ by a famous prelude and fugue for keyboard.