Brandenburg concertos - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Brandenburg concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

(BWV 1046–1051, original title: Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments) are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, margrave

Margrave

A margrave or margravine was a medieval hereditary nobleman with military responsibilities in a border province of a kingdom. Border provinces usually had more exposure to military incursions from the outside, compared to interior provinces, and thus a margrave usually had larger and more active...

of Brandenburg

Brandenburg

Brandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...

-Schwedt

Schwedt

Schwedt is a city in Brandenburg, Germany. It is the largest city of the district Uckermark near the Oder river on the border with Poland.-Overview:...

, in 1721 (though probably composed earlier). They are widely regarded as among the finest musical compositions of the Baroque era

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

History

The inscription of 24 March 1721 on the dedication manuscript to the Margrave, attests for the date of composition for the Brandenburg Concerti, but most likely they had been written over a number of years during Bach's tenure as Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister

Kapellmeister is a German word designating a person in charge of music-making. The word is a compound, consisting of the roots Kapelle and Meister . The words Kapelle and Meister derive from the Latin: capella and magister...

at Köthen

Köthen (Anhalt)

Köthen is a city in Germany. It is the capital of the district of Anhalt-Bitterfeld in Saxony-Anhalt, about north of Halle.Köthen is the location of the main campus and the administrative center of the regional technical university Hochschule Anhalt which is especially strong in information...

and possibly even extending back to the period of his employment at Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

(1708–17).

The dedication page Bach wrote for the collection indicates they are Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Concertos with several instruments). Bach used the "widest spectrum of orchestral instruments... in daring combinations," as Christoph Wolff

Christoph Wolff

Christoph Wolff is a German-born musicologist, presently on the faculty of Harvard University. Born and educated in Germany, Wolff studied organ and historical keyboard instruments, musicology and art history at the Universities of Berlin, Erlangen, and the Music Academy of Freiburg, receiving a...

has commented. "Every one of the six concertos set a precedent in scoring, and every one was to remain without parallel." Heinrich Besseler has noted that the overall forces required (leaving aside the first concerto, which was rewritten for a special occasion) tallies exactly with the 17 players Bach had at his disposal in Köthen.

Here is the first sentence of his dedication to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg-Schwedt, its tone, if not its rather remarkable length, typical of dedications of the period:

"As I had the good fortune a few years ago to be heard by Your Royal Highness, at Your Highness's commands, and as I noticed then that Your Highness took some pleasure in the little talents which Heaven has given me for Music, and as in taking Leave of Your Royal Highness, Your Highness deigned to honour me with the command to send Your Highness some pieces of my Composition: I have in accordance with Your Highness's most gracious orders taken the liberty of rendering my most humble duty to Your Royal Highness with the present Concertos, which I have adapted to several instruments; begging Your Highness most humbly not to judge their imperfection with the rigor of that discriminating and sensitive taste, which everyone knows Him to have for musical works, but rather to take into benign Consideration the profound respect and the most humble obedience which I thus attempt to show Him."

Because King Frederick William I

Frederick William I of Prussia

Frederick William I of the House of Hohenzollern, was the King in Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg from 1713 until his death...

of Prussia

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

was not a significant patron of the arts, Christian Ludwig seems to have lacked the musicians in his Berlin ensemble to perform the concertos. The full score was left unused in the Margrave's library until his death in 1734, when it was sold for 24 groschen

Groschen

Groschen was the name for a coin used in various German-speaking states as well as some non-German-speaking countries of Central Europe , the Danubian principalities...

(as of 2008, about US$22.00 of silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

). The autograph manuscript of the concertos was only rediscovered in the archives of Brandenburg

Brandenburg

by Siegfried Wilhelm Dehn in 1849; the concertos were first published in the following year.

In the modern era these works have been performed by orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

s with the string parts each played by a number of players, under the batons of, for example, Karl Richter and Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

. They have also been performed as chamber music

Chamber music

Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

, with one instrument per part, especially by (but not limited to) groups using baroque instruments and (sometimes more, sometimes less) historically-informed techniques and practice. There is also an arrangement for four-hand piano duet by composer Max Reger

Max Reger

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...

.

The first two bars of the sixth concerto's third movement (transposed in C major) are often used as a lead-in for radio programs distributed by American Public Media

American Public Media

American Public Media is the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida. Its station brands are Minnesota Public Radio,...

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F major, BWV 1046

Title on autograph score: Concerto 1^mo à 2 Corni di Caccia, 3 Hautb: è Bassono, Violino Piccolo concertato, 2 Violini, una Viola è Violoncello, col Basso Continuo.

(Allegro moderato)
Adagio
Allegro
Menuet - Trio I - Menuet da capo - Polacca - Menuet da capo - Trio II - Menuet da capo

Instrumentation: two corni da caccia

Natural horn

The natural horn is a musical instrument that is the ancestor of the modern-day horn, and is differentiated by its lack of valves. It consists of a mouthpiece, some long coiled tubing, and a large flared bell. Pitch changes are made through a few different techniques:* Modulating the lip tension as...

, three oboes, bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

, violino piccolo

Violino piccolo

The violino piccolo is a stringed instrument of the baroque period. Most examples are similar to a child's size violin in size, and are tuned a third or a fourth higher...

, and two violins, viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

, cello, and basso continuo

This concerto is the only one in the collection with four movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

. An earlier version (Sinfonia, BWV 1046a) which does not use the violino piccolo was used for the opening of cantata BWV 208. This version lacks the third movement entirely, and the Polacca from the final movement, leaving Menuet - Trio I - Menuet - Trio II - Menuet. The first movement can also be found as the sinfonia of the cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, BWV 52
Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht, BWV 52
Falsche Welt, dir trau ich nicht , BWV 52, is a church cantata written by Johann Sebastian Bach in Leipzig for the 23nd Sunday after Trinity, first performed on 24 November 1726.-History and words:...

. The third movement was used as the opening chorus of cantata BWV 207.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047

Title on autograph score: Concerto 2^do à 1 Tromba, 1 Flauto, 1 Hautbois, 1 Violino, concertati, è 2 Violini, 1 Viola è Violone in Ripieno col Violoncello è Basso per il Cembalo.

(Allegro moderato)
Andante
Allegro assai

Concertino

Concertino (group)

A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. This is opposed to the ripieno which is the larger group contrasting with the concertino....

: natural trumpet

Natural trumpet

A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series.-History:The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication ....

in F, recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

, oboe, violin

Ripieno

Ripieno

Ripieno or tutti can refer to:*the larger of the two ensembles in the concerto grosso. This is opposed to the concertino which are the soloists.*the notes added when realizing the figured bass of a basso continuo....

: two violins, viola, violone, and basso continuo (including harpsichord)

The trumpet part is still considered one of the most difficult in the entire repertoire, and was originally written for a clarino specialist, almost certainly the court trumpeter in Köthen

Köthen (Anhalt)

, Johann Ludwig Schreiber. After clarino playing skills were lost in the eighteenth century and before the rise of the historically informed performance

Historically informed performance

Historically informed performance is an approach in the performance of music and theater. Within this approach, the performance adheres to state-of-the-art knowledge of the aesthetic criteria of the period in which the music or theatre work was conceived...

movement of the late twentieth century, the part was usually played on the valved trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

.

The trumpet

Natural trumpet

A natural trumpet is a valveless brass instrument that is able to play the notes of the harmonic series.-History:The natural trumpet was used as a military instrument to facilitate communication ....

does not play in the second movement, as is common practice in baroque era concerti due to the construction of the natural trumpet, which allows it to play only in one key. Because concerti often move to a different key in the second movement, concerti that include a trumpet in their first movement and are from the period before the valved trumpet was commonly used, exclude the trumpet from the second movement.

This piece served as the theme song for William F. Buckley, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...

's Firing Line
Firing Line
Firing Line was an American public affairs show founded and hosted by conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. Its 1,504 episodes over 33 years made Firing Line the longest-running public affairs show in television history with a single host...

. It was also chosen as the first to be played on the "golden record"

Voyager Golden Record

The Voyager Golden Records are phonograph records which were included aboard both Voyager spacecraft, which were launched in 1977. They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or for...

, a phonograph record containing a broad sample of Earth's common sounds, languages, and music sent into outer space with the two Voyager

Voyager program

The Voyager program is a U.S program that launched two unmanned space missions, scientific probes Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. They were launched in 1977 to take advantage of a favorable planetary alignment of the late 1970s...

probes.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major, BWV 1048

Title on autograph score: Concerto 3^zo a tre Violini, tre Viole, è tre Violoncelli col Basso per il Cembalo.

(Allegro moderato)
Adagio
Allegro

Instrumentation: three violins, three violas, three cellos, and basso continuo (including harpsichord)

The second movement consists of a single measure with the two chords that make up a 'Phrygian half cadence

Cadence (music)

In Western musical theory, a cadence is, "a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of repose or resolution [finality or pause]." A harmonic cadence is a progression of two chords that concludes a phrase, section, or piece of music...

' and—although there is no direct evidence to support it—it was likely that these chords are meant to surround or follow a cadenza

Cadenza

In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....

improvised by a harpsichord or violin player. Modern performance approaches range from simply playing the cadence with minimal ornamentation (treating it as a sort of "musical semicolon"), to inserting movements from other works, to cadenzas varying in length from under a minute to over two minutes. Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician. Carlos first came to notice in the late 1960s with recordings made on the Moog synthesizer, then a relatively new and unknown instrument; most notable were LPs of synthesized Bach and the soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick's film A...

's three electronic performances (from Switched-On Bach
Switched-On Bach
-Details:The album consists of pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed on a Moog synthesizer, a modular synthesizer system, one of which can be seen at the back of the room on the album cover. "Switched-On Bach," or "S-OB" as Carlos referred to it, was recorded on a custom-built 8 track recorder...

, Switched-On Brandenburgs, and Switched-On Bach 2000) have second movements that are completely different from each other.

Occasionally, the third movement from Bach's "Sonata for Violin and Continuo in G , BWV. 1021" (marked Largo) is substituted for the second movement as it contains an identical 'Phrygian cadence' as the closing chords. The Largo from the Violin Sonata in G, BWV 1019, has also been used. It has a flourish of different notes.

The outer movements use the ritornello

Ritornello

A ritornello is a recurring passage in Baroque music for orchestra or chorus. The first or final movement of a solo concerto or aria may be in "ritornello form", in which the ritornello is the opening theme, always played by tutti, which returns in whole or in part and in different keys throughout...

form found in many instrumental and vocal works of the time. The first movement can also be found in reworked form as the sinfonia of the cantata BWV 174, "Ich liebe den Höchsten von ganzem Gemüte", with the addition of three oboes and two horns.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G major, BWV 1049

Title on autograph score: Concerto 4^ta à Violino Principale, due Fiauti d'Echo, due Violini, una Viola è Violone in Ripieno, Violoncello è Continuo.

Allegro
Andante
Presto

Concertino

Concertino (group)

A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. This is opposed to the ripieno which is the larger group contrasting with the concertino....

: violin and two recorder

Recorder

s

Ripieno

Ripieno

: two violins, viola, cello, violone and basso continuo

The violin part in this concerto is extremely virtuosic in the first and third movements. In the second movement, the violin provides a bass when the concertino group plays unaccompanied.

Bach adapted the 4th Brandenburg concerto as the last of his set of 6 harpsichord concerto

Harpsichord concertos (J. S. Bach)

The harpsichord concertos, BWV 1052-1065, are concertos for harpsichord, strings and continuo by Johann Sebastian Bach. There are seven complete concertos for a single harpsichord, , three concertos for 2 harpsichords , two concertos for 3 harpsichords , and one concerto for 4 harpsichords,...

s, the concerto for harpsichord, two recorders and strings in F major, BWV 1057. As well as taking on most of the solo violin's role, the harpsichord also takes over some of the recorders' parts in the andante, plays a basso continuo role at times and occasionally adds a fourth contrapuntal part to an originally three-part texture (something which Bach occasionally did while improvising). The harpsichord concerto is thus more than a mere transcription

Transcription (music)

In music, transcription can mean notating a piece or a sound which was previously unnotated, as, for example, an improvised jazz solo. Further examples include ethnomusicological notation of oral traditions of folk music, such as Béla Bartók's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' collections of the national...

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050

Title on autograph score: Concerto Traversiere, une Violino principale, une Violino è una Viola in ripieno, Violoncello, Violone è Cembalo concertato.

Allegro
Affettuoso
Allegro

Concertino

Concertino (group)

A concertino is the smaller group of instruments in a concerto grosso. This is opposed to the ripieno which is the larger group contrasting with the concertino....

: harpsichord

Harpsichord

A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed.In the narrow sense, "harpsichord" designates only the large wing-shaped instruments in which the strings are perpendicular to the keyboard...

, violin, flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

Ripieno: violin, viola, cello, violone, (harpsichord)

The harpsichord is both a concertino and a ripieno instrument: in the concertino passages the part is obbligato

Obbligato

In classical music obbligato usually describes a musical line that is in some way indispensable in performance. Its opposite is the marking ad libitum. It can also be used, more specifically, to indicate that a passage of music was to be played exactly as written, or only by the specified...

; in the ripieno passages it has a figured bass part and plays continuo.

This concerto makes use of a popular chamber music ensemble of the time (flute, violin, and harpsichord), which Bach used on their own for the middle movement. It is believed that it was written in 1719, to show off a new harpsichord by Michael Mietke

Michael Mietke

Michael Mietke I was a German harpsichord and harp maker, whose sons also became instrument makers.He apparently lived his entire life in Berlin and is known to have been an instrument maker there from, at the latest, 1695. He succeeded Christoph Werner in 1707 as official maker to the court...

which Bach had brought back from Berlin for the Cöthen court. It is also thought that Bach wrote it for a competition at Dresden with the French composer and organist Louis Marchand

Louis Marchand

Louis Marchand was a French Baroque organist, harpsichordist, and composer. Born into an organist's family, Marchand was a child prodigy and quickly established himself as one of the best known French virtuosi of his time. He worked as organist of numerous churches and, for a few years, at the...

; in the central movement, Bach uses one of Marchand's themes. Marchand fled before the competition could take place, apparently scared off in the face of Bach's great reputation for virtuosity and improvisation

Improvisation

Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...

.

The concerto is well suited throughout to showing off the qualities of a fine harpsichord and the virtuosity of its player, but especially in the lengthy solo 'cadenza

Cadenza

' to the first movement. It seems almost certain that Bach, considered a great organ and harpsichord virtuoso, was the harpsichord soloist at the premiere. Scholars have seen in this work the origins of the solo keyboard concerto as it is the first example of a concerto with a solo keyboard part.

An earlier version, BWV 1050a, has innumerable small differences from its later cousin, but only two main ones: there is no part for cello, and there is a shorter and less elaborate (though harmonically remarkable) harpsichord cadenza in the first movement. (The cello part in BWV 1050, when it differs from the violone part, doubles the left hand of the harpsichord.)

Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 in B flat major, BWV 1051

Title on autograph score: Concerto 6^to à due Viole da Braccio, due Viole da Gamba, Violoncello, Violone e Cembalo.

(Allegro)
Adagio ma non troppo
Allegro

Instrumentation: two viole da braccio, two viole da gamba, cello, violone, and harpsichord

The absence of violins is unusual. Viola da braccio means the normal viola, and is used here to distinguish it from the "viola da gamba". When the work was written in 1721, the viola da gamba was already an old-fashioned instrument: the strong supposition that one viola da gamba part was taken by his employer, Prince Leopold, also points to a likely reason for the concerto's composition—Leopold wished to join his Kapellmeister playing music. Other theories speculate that, since the viola da braccio was typically played by a lower socioeconomic class (e.g., servants), the work sought to upend the musical status quo by giving an important role to a "lesser" instrument. This is supported by knowledge that Bach wished to end his tenure under Prince Leopold. By upsetting the balance of the musical roles, he would be released from his servitude as Kapellmeister and allowed to seek employ elsewhere.

The two violas start the first movement with a vigorous subject in close canon

Canon (music)

In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...

, and as the movement progresses, the other instruments are gradually drawn into the seemingly uninterrupted steady flow of melodic invention which shows the composer's mastery of polyphony

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....

. The two violas da gamba are silent in the second movement, leaving the texture of a trio sonata

Sonata

Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...

for two violas and continuo, although the cello has a decorated version of the continuo bass line. In the last movement, the spirit of the gigue

Gigue

The gigue or giga is a lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. It was imported into France in the mid-17th century and usually appears at the end of a suite...

underlies everything, as it did in the finale of the fifth concerto.

External links

Scores
Essays

The Brandenburg Concertos: A New Interpretation - Essay on rhetoric and symbolism in the concertos by early music expert Philip Pickett
Philip Pickett
Philip Pickett is an English musician, recorder player and director of early music ensembles, notably The New London Consort.- Student days :...
classicalnotes.net: Brandenburg Concertos - Comprehensive discussion by Peter Gutmann including assessment of recordings
Inkpot: The Brandenburg Concertos - An introduction by Benjamin Chee
good-music-guide.com: Brandenburg Concertos - Introductory survey

Recordings

List of recordings, with reviews, from jsbach.org
Free MP3 Recording with Creative Commons License
Czech Radio recording free download - in MP3 or FLAC
FLAC
FLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...

(Retrieved 22 Mar 2009.)
Johann Sebastian Bach - The six Brandenburg concertos - BVW 1046-1051, Le Concert des Nations, La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Jordi Savall - Alia Vox AVSA 9871 A+B
An animated version of the Third Concerto on YouTube.
Free midi recordings of all concertos by various artists
Free midi recordings of the concertos 3 and 5 by Alan Kennington. On piano only.
The Six Brandenburg Concertos for Piano Four Hands, transcribed by Max Reger,on Itunes
Streaming audio of the complete first, third and fourth concertos performed by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.
Streaming audio of the complete second, third and sixth concertos performed by the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam.

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