Johann Sebastian Bach's "Italian" Concerto is featured
in his Clavierübung, Part 2. The preface to the first
published edition of 1735 (issued by Christoph Weigl of
Nuremberg) made it clear that this "Übung" (or
"exercise") was written exclusively for a two-manual
harpsichord or Clavicymbal, and was, according to the
composer himself, intended "for lovers of music, for
their enjoyment," and not solely for the purposes of
their technical advancement. The prescribed two-manual
instrument was qui...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach's "Italian" Concerto is featured
in his Clavierübung, Part 2. The preface to the first
published edition of 1735 (issued by Christoph Weigl of
Nuremberg) made it clear that this "Übung" (or
"exercise") was written exclusively for a two-manual
harpsichord or Clavicymbal, and was, according to the
composer himself, intended "for lovers of music, for
their enjoyment," and not solely for the purposes of
their technical advancement. The prescribed two-manual
instrument was quite clearly a deliberate choice on
Bach's part, since its use enabled the player and
indeed the composer to explore new timbral contrasts
and dynamic gradations that had been hitherto
unavailable to keyboard players. Bach's early
exploitation and championship of the expanded
potentialities of the harpsichord partly accounted for
the phenomenal growth in the popularity of the
instrument, especially toward the end of Bach's
life.
Described by J.A. Scheibe as "a perfect model of a
well-designed solo concerto," Bach's "Concerto after
the Italian Style" is not, as was once supposed, a
reduction of a full keyboard concerto with orchestra,
but rather an attempt at recreating the elements of
concerto style in microcosm in a brilliant work for a
solo instrument. This work manages to capture and
sustain the fundamental principle of dialogue and
exchange between concertino and ripieno groups found in
any conventional concerto. Using a fascinating and
intellectually rigorous alternation between solo and
tutti passagework, Bach manages to assign the normal
tutti function of the absent orchestra to the more
powerful principal manual of the harpsichord, giving
the virtuoso writing normally reserved for the soloist
to the second manual. It would be reasonable to call
the Italian Concerto a compendium-style work. In this
regard at least, it has but one equal in the entire
literature, this being the Concerto for Orchestra by
Bartók.
In its ordering of movements, the work follows the
standard Baroque concerto pattern, in which a central
slow movement (Andante) is framed by two faster ones.
Only in the central movement does the music take the
form of a highly ornamented melody line for the right
hand heard above a straightforward chordal
accompaniment. Remarkably, however, the left hand part
(in thirds) actually takes up the main melody of the
brilliant opening movement (without tempo marking),
already remarkable for its élan and bravura
craftsmanship and for the way in which the music echoes
contemporary orchestral technique so masterfully. The
tonal scheme of the Presto finale is very simple,
hardly veering away from tonic and dominant harmonies.
The payoff here, however, is the tremendous vitality
and dynamism of the music, based on nothing more
complex than an F major ascending scale from which Bach
crafts his essential materials. As one would expect
from a master contrapuntist, the theme is heard in
augmentation and diminution, in inversion and contrary
motion, and indeed in a whole panoply of spectacular
concatenations that leave the listener marveling by the
close at the fact that this is a work for just one
player, two hands, and two manuals!
PARTITION