In the early years of the eighteenth century, Jan Jacob de Graaf, organist at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, began adapting the popular Italian concertos of the day for performance on the organ. This practice is believed to have been the inspiration for the series of concerto transcriptions undertaken by Johann Sebastian Bach during 1713-1714. The idea was relayed to him by a noble at the court of his employ in Weimar, Prince Johann Ernst, who returned from his studies in Utrecht and Amsterdam with bundles of manuscripts of concertos (including three he had composed himself) that he wished for Bach to transcribe for keyboard, after the manner of de Graaf. Bach responded with a series of 16 solo concertos for keyboard instruments, including the work under consideration here, the Concerto No. 5 in C major (BWV 976). Bach based the fifth concerto in the series on a violin concerto by the acknowledged master of the genre at the time, Antonio Vivaldi. (At least five others in the series are likewise based on works by Vivaldi.) Prince Johann Ernst encountered the original concerto in Vivaldi's famous Op. 3 collection, L'estro armonico, which was published in Amsterdam in 1711. No. 12 from that collection, the Vivaldi concerto (RV 265), was originally composed in E major, but Bach seems to have found the solo part's contours more fluidly renderable in C major. The first movement features one of the most compelling melodies in any of Vivaldi's concertos (indeed, it is one of the more familiar tunes to modern ears in Vivaldi's vast oeuvre), as well as considerable harmonic surprise, and the pacing of textural contrasts between solo and tutti sections is less predictable here than in many of the other violin concertos chosen for keyboard transcription. Perhaps that is why the opening movement transfers so convincingly to the harpsichord, the original having relied much less on virtuosic violin pyrotechnics to maintain momentum. Likewise, in the plaintive Largo of the middle movement, the melody and harmony of the original are such streamlined elegance that Bach seems compelled to adorn the lines with harpsichordal flourishes much less ornately than he does in other second movements in the series. Perhaps, though, this is simply meant to more drastically set off the driving momentum of the final movement, a lively and melodically circuitous Allegro in triple meter.

Source: AllMusic (http://www.allmusic.com/composition/concerto-for-solo- keyboard-no-5-in-c-major-after-vivaldi-op-3-12-rv-265-b wv-976-bc-l188-mc0002379360).

Although originally written for Harpsichord. I created this Arrangement of the Concerto in C Major (BWV 976) for Woodwind Quintet (Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet, French Horn & Bassoon).