Maya Homburger (baroque violin)/Malcolm Proud (harpsichord)

{TABLE} Sonata No 2 in A, BWV 1015 ................. Bach Sonata No 1 in B minor, BWV 1014 ........... Bach Sonata No 3 in E, BWV 1016 ................. Bach {/TABLE} THE adage says the best things in life are free. This certainly applies to last Sunday's midday concert in the Lane Gallery. The duo of Maya Homburger (baroque violin) and Malcolm Proud (harpsichord) were totally atone in their interpretation of the first three of Bach's six sonatas for harpsichord and violin solo with optional viola da gamba (1725).

The programme notes refer tantalisingly to a hypothetical performance by Bach "with his friend and concertmaster - Joseph Spiess as violin, and perhaps Christian, Ferdinand Abel as bass violin, but even without bass viol Malcolm - Proud's harpsichord playing has a sonority and smoothness that can sing along with the violin.

Maya Homburger's playing soared above the often virtuosically busy harpsichord past with an apparent rhythmic freedom and improvisatory freshness that released the music from the printed score and endowed it with a vibrant life of its own. Vibrant without vibrato, it might be added, for that ornament, discredited by over frequent use, was used only sparingly and with an unobtrusive delicacy.

There was plenty of the contrapuntal ingenuity that was second nature to Bach, but the overall impression was of a great melodist, effortlessly producing long lines of expressively shaped song, a secular plainchant with festive ornamentation. This was particularly evident in the slow movements, but even in the fast movements with their metric regularity, the tunefulness was unencumbered by any mechanical sense of time, a sense that can bedevil performances of Bach.