Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for solo keyboard No.
4 in G minor (BWV 975) is one of several solo
concertos, all from 1713-1714, that Bach based on
concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. These transcriptions were
undertaken during Bach's Weimar period, at the behest
of Prince Johann Ernst. The Prince, having been
impressed by the keyboard realizations of Italian
concertos by organist Jan Jacob de Graaf, commissioned
several concerto transcriptions from Bach as well as
the composer's cousin John Walthe...(+)
Johann Sebastian Bach's Concerto for solo keyboard No.
4 in G minor (BWV 975) is one of several solo
concertos, all from 1713-1714, that Bach based on
concertos by Antonio Vivaldi. These transcriptions were
undertaken during Bach's Weimar period, at the behest
of Prince Johann Ernst. The Prince, having been
impressed by the keyboard realizations of Italian
concertos by organist Jan Jacob de Graaf, commissioned
several concerto transcriptions from Bach as well as
the composer's cousin John Walther, providing them with
manuscripts and publications he had collected during
his travels. Vivaldi is the most well-represented
composer of Bach's concerto transcriptions, but the 16
works in this collection also include keyboard
realizations of works by Torelli, Marcello, and Prince
Johann Ernst himself. The solo concerto BWV 975 is
unique among the collection, however, in that the
Vivaldi concerto upon which it is based, Op. 4/6 (RV
316), no longer exists in the form from which Bach
adapted it. A later version of Vivaldi's original (RV
316a) survives, but with a different third movement.
Bach's transcription of the piece is thus the only
remnant of the Vivaldi work as it was originally
structured. (Three other of the 16 concertos are of
unknown provenance and attribution.) As in the other
works in this collection drawn from violin concertos,
the solo concerto BWV 975 makes certain idiomatic
adjustments in rendering the solo lines. The obvious
textural contrasts of tutti vs. solo passages are
rendered through contrasts between more chordal and
more economical voicings. There are certain passages
whose physical contours suggest their emerging from an
instrument other than the one playing them; after the
second tutti section of the first movement, for
example, the right hand enters with a sequence of
downward skips that are subsequently filled in with
quick thirty-second notes in a manner suggesting nimble
fingerboard work, germane to violin virtuosity and
slightly out of place on the keyboard. On the other
hand, in translating from one instrument to another,
Bach widens the keyboard's palette of textures and
contours. Likewise, in striving for the fluid emotional
intensity of the violin in the second movement, Bach's
transcription lends the harpsichord an unusually
poignancy. The third movement (the one not surviving in
Vivaldi's original), rides along on an extrovert and
nearly unbroken stream of rapid eighth notes in a quick
and delightful "Giga."
PARTITION