LMP Play Bach’s Brandenburgs

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G Major, BWV 1048

I           Allegro

II          Adagio

III         Allegro

It seems that only a relatively small part of Bach’s orchestral oeuvre has been preserved for posterity. Much has been speculated about the reasons for the above-average losses in this particular field, but until now no really conclusive reasons have been found. The fact that so few works for instrumental ensemble have survived, particularly from the Weimar and Cothen periods, during which the composer directed so many excellent ensembles, has led many researchers to the hypothesis that Bach was obliged to leave the majority of his compositions in these places when he moved on to another post – a common custom for which much evidence can be found in many 18th-century documents; other considerations establish a connection with the distribution of Bach’s compositions to his heirs after his death. Whatever the case, only one thing is certain: after centuries of obscurity, a leap of faith was taken at the beginning of the 19th century that led to a renaissance of his music, the greater part of which by then was entirely unknown even to Bach connoisseurs, into the performance repertoire.

The Brandenburg concertos (BWV 1046–1051) are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg, in 1721 (though probably composed earlier). They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era.

Brandenburg Concerto No.3 in G major may have been written while Bach was at Weimar, given that it (along with Nos. 1 and 6) is reminiscent of the Italian concerto, a genre with which Bach was fascinated at the time. The motoric rhythm, clear melodic outline and motivic construction owe a lot to the comparable works of Vivaldi, but the clarified harmony and more interesting counterpoint are unmistakably Bach’s.

The concerto is scored for three groups, each consisting of three members of the violin family (three violins, three violas and three cellos). Bach is ingenious in the use of the various possibilities of combination: in one place the musical texture is shared between high, middle and low registers, in another place between three string trios, and occasionally individual representatives of each group come into prominence as soloists.

The work’s two main sections, both in G major, are separated by a brief Adagio – a short violin cadenza. The Italian concerto grosso’s distinction between concertino (a small group of soloists) and ripieno (the full ensemble) becomes in Bach’s hands, and especially distinctively in the Brandenburg Concerto No.3, a kaleidoscopic range of colours and shades.

© Elizabeth Boulton

Bach Orchestral Suite No.2 in B minor, BWV 1067

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.2 in F Major, BWV 1047

I               Allegro

II             Andante

III            Allegro assai

J.S. Bach, the most well known and celebrated member of the Bach family, composed six ‘Concerti for several instruments’ (Concerts avec plusieurs instruments) which he dedicated to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg on 24 March 1721. The concerti were composed over a considerable period before being assembled in 1721 as a collection and where presented to the Margrave by Bach in the hope of securing his patronage. However the Margrave lacked the required musicians to perform the works, and they sat in his library before being sold off after his death in 1734. The full scores were discovered in the archives of Brandenburg and due to their dedication, were christened the Brandenburg Concerti.

The various concerti are of special significance because they reject the standard form of the concerto grosso, as seen in the concertos of Vivaldi and use a variety of solo combinations. A large group of instruments, called the ripieno, play alongside a smaller group of soloists, called the concertino. It is in this later group that Bach developed different combinations of instruments across all six of his concerti. In his Concerto No.2, the concertino consists of a natural trumpet in F, flute, oboe and violin. Bach pushed his creative boundaries and wrote passages of high virtuosity, particularly for the trumpet, due to the skill of the musicians at his disposal during his time as kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen from 1717 to 1723. Musicologists believe that the trumpet part, regarded as one of the most demanding orchestral trumpets parts ever composed, was written for Johann Ludwig Schreiber, the court trumpeter in Köthen and not Gottfried Reiche, as originally thought. Reiche, a celebrated trumpeter and senior city piper of Leipzig, was noted for playing all of Bach’s first trumpet parts after Bach arrived in Leipzig in 1723, two years after the initial dedication of his Brandenburg Concerti.

The opening movement is a grand, stately introduction and instantly shows off the skill of the trumpeter with passages high in the instrument’s range consisting of numerous lip trills. The second movement in contrast is a slow, lyrical Andante which allows the violin, flute and oboe to pass between each other with various contrapuntal melody lines. The trumpet is omitted from the second movement, as is common with Baroque era concerti, due to the construction of the natural trumpet, which only allows it to play in one key. As the second movement moves into a different key, the trumpet is therefore excluded. The third movement is as striking as the first and the trumpet awakens with an opening passage virtuosic and high in its register. Trumpeters often choose to perform the work on the piccolo trumpet, as valve trumpets are preferred to natural trumpets nowadays. The movement is rapid and has an air of a courtly dance about it, before ending on a rather unexpected final cadence.

© Martin Sargeson

Bach Brandenburg Concerto No.5 in D Major, BWV 1050.2

I           Allegro

II          Affetuoso

III         Allegro

For reasons that remain obscure, only a relatively small part of Bach’s orchestral œuvre has been preserved for posterity. The fact that so few works for instrumental ensemble have survived, particularly from the Weimar and Köthen periods, during which the composer directed many ensembles, has led many researchers to the hypothesis that Bach was obliged to leave the majority of his compositions in these places when he moved on to another post. Other considerations establish a connection with the distribution of Bach’s compositions to his heirs after his death. These reasons, coupled with a profound change in musical taste and fashion, led to Bach’s music plunging into obscurity after his death until his renaissance at the beginning of the 19th century. However, since then, Bach’s orchestral works have enjoyed enormous and enduring popularity.

In 1719, Bach visited Berlin on an errand, where he met Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. The following year Bach began to find that retaining his current position in Köthen was losing its appeal for a number of reasons, among which, reportedly, was Princess Friderica’s dislike of Bach’s music. (Friderica was the new wife of Bach’s employer, Prince Leopold.) Perhaps as a bid for a new position, Bach collected a group of his works and sent the dedicated score entitled ‘Six Concertos for Several Instruments’ to the Margrave, but it is not clear whether he responded or not.

Now known as the ‘Brandenburg Concertos’ due to their dedicatee, each concerto has little in common with the others. The instrumentation, keys and themes change from one concerto to the next, but in them, Bach took the realisation of the concerto form to a new level that was in every case convincing, novel and original, as well as exploring various new tone colours within the various instrumentations.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 is famous for being considered as the herald of the keyboard concerto as a genre. The virtuoso soloist is supported by a small concertino of flute and violin. The imposing harpsichord cadenza that almost bursts the boundaries of the first movement was added by Bach while he was preparing the definitive score for the dedicatee – presumably in order to remind the Margrave of his own skill as a virtuoso as well as try out a fancy new harpsichord he’d just purchased. After the slow movement, an intensively worked-out quartet setting, the work concludes with a cheerful Gigue in a loose fugal form.

© Elizabeth Boulton