Bach Sonatas for Two Flutes and Continuo

The demand for and purpose of chamber music at the time of Bach, Handel and Telemann was in no way what we now expect in our bourgeois age. This music was not intended primarily for listeners and certainly not for public concerts. Baroque chamber music was intended almost exclusively as a way for the performer to further his musical education and training, and at the same time to give him pleasure. Its second purpose was to serve as an exercise and testing ground for composers ...