Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musici...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach was better known as a virtuoso
organist than as a composer in his day. His sacred
music, organ and choral works, and other instrumental
music had an enthusiasm and seeming freedom that
concealed immense rigor. Bach's use of counterpoint was
brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities
of his compositional style -- which often included
religious and numerological symbols that seem to fit
perfectly together in a profound puzzle of special
codes -- still amaze musicians today. Many consider him
the greatest composer of all time.
This music was composed at Cöthen between 1717 and
1723, and very likely first played by Joseph Spiess and
Martin Friedrich Marcus with Prince Leopold's court
orchestra. At Cöthen, Bach had no organ to play,
despite his pan-German reputation as a virtuoso on that
behemoth among Baroque instruments. However, he was
proficient as well on the violin, the viola da gamba,
and of course the clavier. Without his first choice
available, or church duties such as Leipzig demanded
later on, Johann Sebastian concentrated on instrumental
music in various combinations -- much of it
subsequently lost. Along with the Brandenburg Concertos
as a set, only two more concertos for solo violin and
the D minor for two violins survived out of who knows
how many, beyond the ones Bach rewrote at Leipzig after
1729 for one, two, three, and four claviers. All of his
concertos, Brandenburgs included, had Vivaldi as their
point of departure, and some were even transcriptions
of the Italian master's works. Bach's genius was, of
course, that he could individualize as well as
transcend the music of a man indirectly his mentor. His
works hadn't the sensuality or esprit of Vivaldi's;
Bach was German Lutheran, bound beyond climate and
environment by a religion that denounced the secular
excesses in which Roman Catholicism (as Luther viewed
it from within) had wallowed since the Middle Ages.
While opera had no place in Bach's education, life, or
music, he was nonetheless sublimely capable of
lyricism, warmth, and gentleness, never more so than in
the Largo, ma non tanto middle movement of this Double
Concerto, with its 12/8 Siciliano rhythm and solo lines
that seem to caress one another as they overlap and
intertwine. On either side of this blissful duolog,
however, the Baroque contrapuntist displays his mastery
of synthesis and organization. The concerto opens with
a fugal exposition of two contrasting themes, and their
"development" in the ritornello style through G minor
and C minor before the orchestra "reprises" the opening
theme one last time. The allegro finale, in triple
meter, likewise features imitation and repetition with
the soloists front and center. Even more than in the
first movement, there is a feeling of sonata form in
embryo, with the charming surprise of a reprise in G
minor instead of the tonic D minor.
Although originally written for 2 Violins & Strings, I
created this Arrangement of the Concerto in D Minor
(BWV 1043) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION