Marc Sabat has created a radical reimagining of Bach's three Sonatas for Solo Violin, arranging them for two violins using just intonation tunings—an approach where intervals are tuned according to natural harmonic partials rather than the tempered tuning of keyboards. As Sabat explains: "Ever since I first played solo Bach on my violin, I've been fascinated by how changing colours of differently tuned harmonic intervals shape and transform the music."
Sabat annotated Bach's score with just intonation accidentals, but the project evolved beyond mere retuning. He composed a second violin part that began as "sustained harmonic drones on mostly open strings and harmonics, but which gradually evolved into a kind of personal take on harmonic counterpoint, and became a gentle conversation between my own music and Bach's, finding my way by ear." By the third sonata, Sabat was dividing Bach's notes between the two violins, allowing the sustaining notes Bach wrote—but expected to be only briefly sounded in broken chords—to actually sound through the melodic lines, "revealing parts of his score that aren't usually heard."
The tuning itself is complex and shifting. As Sabat notes: "The note C often has three different tunings, ranging across a quartertone range: as a perfect fifth from G, as a major third from E, or as a natural seventh from D. In the third sonata, C is the tonal centre, so in my version, the keynote (tonic) is continually shifting! In fact, at one point in the first movement, I combine all three of these different C's in close proximity, sometimes even simultaneously!"
Each of the three Bach arrangements is prefaced by a short prelude from Sabat's cycle Streams Barely in Winter (2019). These miniatures focus on particular intonations of the piece to follow: "Cold" explores the descending minor scale tuned below D; "Sun" examines septimal harmonies where violin strings serve as natural sevenths; "Stones" explores the multiple tunings of C, introducing even a quartertone made explicit into harmony.
The collaboration with Sara Cubarsi—who "combines instrumental virtuosity with a deep conceptual curiosity"—began a decade ago when they met at Cat Lamb's Berlin studio, inspiring Sabat to complete this long-gestating project. Sabat describes it as "very inspiring to collaborate with a composer who invented so many ways of exploring harmony, and to revisit the old question whether music that moves freely through many tonal regions needs a 'well tempered tuning', or if it can also work in a microtonal re-interpretation using many different shadings of pitch."
