The elegant and courtly world of Bach’s chamber music, explored through his longstanding affection for the intimate sound of the viola da gamba. Bach owned a viola da gamba and may very well have played it himself, along with the violin and the keyboard family. While the instrument was already becoming obsolete during his lifetime, to be replaced by the stronger and more reliable sound of the cello, Bach evidently enjoyed writing for it, and perhaps for the virtuoso instrumentalists with whom he came into contact, firstly as Capellmeister at the court in Cothen, and then as Cantor of St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig.