Autograph: a section of the MS P 271. No title-page (fol. 1r left blank, BWV 525 begins fol. 1v); each sonata headed ‘Sonata 1.[etc.]’, perhaps only subsequently. Three staves. At end: ‘Il Fine dei Sonate’. A title-page was written by G. Poelchau (1773–1836): Sechs Orgel-Trios für zwei Manuale mit demobligaten Pedal (‘Six Organ Trios for two manuals with obbligato pedal’).

Sources

The first section of P 271 gives the earliest complete set of the Sonatas (Kilian 1978 p. 65), a special compilation of c. 1730 (Dadelsen 1958 p. 104) or, allowing for the date-range of the watermark, c. 1727–30 (Spitta II pp. 692, 797). In this manuscript as now constituted, the Sonatas, the chorales BWV 651–668 and the Canonic Variations all originally began with a page left blank, each presumably for a full title?

Such a set of sonatas might have been compiled for publication, corresponding to the set of harpsichord partitas issued in 1731, matching the progressive chamber music of the late 1720s for the Collegium musicum, and even employing up-to-date notation(three staves, tempo marks, some slurs and dots). Both Partitas and Sonatas use the treble G-clef, although earlier versions of movements in both sets hadused the soprano C-clef: a change made perhaps for the sake of publication. P 271 has more convenient page-turns than other copies and may havebeen intended as printer's fair copy to be used in the engraving process itself.